The Hamilton Collection: The Wisdom and Writings of the Founding Father

by Dan Tucker (Editor)

The subject of a New York Time s best-selling biography and a Pulitzer-Prize winning musical, interest in Alexander Hamilton is at an all-time high. This carefully curated collection of Hamilton's writings gives the reader an intimate glimpse into the mind of our most misunderstood founding father.

The smash-hit musical Hamilton presents its central character as a truth-telling immigrant boot-strapper who used his extraordinary intelligence to make good -- but what was he really like? Let the man himself, a prolific and extremely effective writer, tell his story in his own words.

Organized chronologically, this collection of Alexander Hamilton's personal letters, business and governmental correspondence, and excerpts from his most important published writings (including the Federalist Papers) gives readers first-hand insight into this highly influential founding father who engineered the ratification of the US Constitution, created the United

States' financial system, and established friendly trade relations with Britain.

The book includes love letters to Elizabeth Schuyler, who became his wife, and correspondence with his friend-turned-nemesis, Aaron Burr, which led to the duel in Weehawken that ended Hamilton's life at the age of 47. Also included are responses from some of his correspondents that give a 360-degree view of the man so esteemed by his protector and friend, George Washington, but reviled by others, including Washington's successor as president, John Adams.

Illustrated with 50 illustrations, drawings, document facsimiles and more, the text is accompanied throughout by explanatory annotations from editor Dan Tucker who also provides introductions to each chapter and a preface.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Politics, Memoir

336 pages, Hardcover

Published October 25, 2016

Reviews

[Mark Henkel · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Hamilton Collection: The Wisdom and Writings of the Founding Father is a well-organized compilation (with brief historic context explanations) of the numerous letters written by Alexander Hamilton.

I have always perceived of this hothead as a "B-level" / Junior Varsity / second-tier level type of founding input than an actual "Founding Father" of the US. As a junior under General George Washington, who was Hamilton's only real advocate and protector, I always viewed Alexander Hamilton as more of a problem than a helper - notwithstanding Hamilton's good-but-not-always-correct work (sometimes too much "energy" for big government) in writing many of the "Federalist Papers" with (a small few by John Jay and many more written by) the nerdy and real brains of the Constitution, James Madison, to get the 1787 Constitution ratified by the States. The Hamilton Collection has simply confirmed my view.

Hamilton was friendly with others until he wasn't. He wrote the Federalist Papers with James Madison and then turned against Madison for being Republican (not Federalist). Hamilton even turned against his protector Washington for a time, after he had misled Washington down the way of Federalist Party ideals. Indeed, Hamilton helped originate the Federalist Party with Washington's Vice President John Adams until he turned against Adams. Hamilton sabotaged the Adams presidency by controlling the Adams Cabinet. Hamilton gamed the election to sabotage his own Federalist Party to ensure that his arch rival Republican Jefferson instead defeated Federalist Adams. He eventually antagonized the Vice President of Jefferson's first term as President, Aaron Burr, until the latter challenged him to the "famous duel" between the two, at which Burr fatally killed Hamilton. He also was scandalized with the combination of a marital love affair with a married woman and a her husband who was blackmailing him for money. Hamilton's wife stayed with him, they had 8 children together, yet he left her in death because of the silliness of the duel.

Alexander Hamilton supported monarchistic ideas (even an "elected monarch"), promoted the tyrannical idea of an INTERNAL REVENUE, and utterly and oppositionally missed the mark of actual REPUBLICAN values that Jefferson and Madison were bringing to the ACTUAL "Founding" of the US of A. Fortunately the (first) Republican Revolution, arising in 1801, wiped out the Federalist Party with the three consecutive 8-year terms of Presidents Thomas Jefferson, then James Madison, then James Monroe for 24 years! (Hamilton also hated Monroe for exposing the marital affair and seeming corruption scandal.)

Republican President Jefferson proposed a plan to cut back the court-stacking of Federalist Judges by former President Adams of expanding District Courts (instead of traveling Judges). Hamilton saw that as a threat to Federalist Party control of the Judiciary. Hamilton went into a hyper propaganda mode that contemporary readers here will easily recognize used today by pretending a supposed "constitutional crisis" when a new President wants to cut back government. Hamilton hyper-ventillated: "Delectable indeed must be the work of disorganization to a mind which can thus rashly advance in its prosecution ...---so mischievous! Who does not see what is the ultimate object? ...'Carthage must be destroyed'"!

I thought the author had been seemingly doing well in being unbiased without propaganda... until Page 241. On that page, the author defaulted to the deliberate history-revisionism that wrongly propagandizes the LIE that supposedly Jefferson's and Madison's Republican Party were named something they were not. The author labels the Vice President of Jefferson's first Presidential term, writing that, "Burr was a Democratic-Republican." No, he was not. No such "Democratic-Republican" Party ever existed in the US. Indeed, the Republican Party of that era would have loathed that false name, hating it as much as the modern Republican Party would loathe being falsely labelled as supposed "Fascist Republicans." It is simply not true. Hence, in this one incident on Page 241, the author of this book succumbed to that propaganda and history revisionism.

Despite that one error, The Hamilton Collection affirms the fact that Alexander Hamilton is definitely NO HERO of the US American Founding. This book, using Hamilton's own hand-written lengthy letters to numerous people, confirmed that for me.

Because of that re-affirmation herewith, I am honestly GLAD that I have read this book. I make that point as I had not really been too excited to read about this non-hero. So what that he wrote a good portion of the " The Federalist Papers ", started the US banking system as Washington's Secretary of Treasury (which I do not celebrate), and is now on the US $10-dollar bill? So what? This hot head was not a hero.

And this book further proves it.

I read The Hamilton Collection from March 1 through 20, 2025. Just under 3 weeks, this took me 20 days to read.

Including noting the Notes, underlining, and making margin notes and commentary, I consumed 665 minutes in total read-time: 11 hours and 5 minutes.

I had received this book from my beloved bride as a gift over 3 years ago for Christmas 2021. Since she breathed her last breath peacefully in my arms just over 9 months ago (as I write this on March 20, 2024), The Hamilton Collection: The Wisdom and Writings of the Founding Father is now the 14th book I have read since that day that so deeply impacted my life - all 14 of which were gifts from her.

For anyone seeking to expand their learning about the founding of the US, and genuinely need to learn more about how Hamilton was really only a lower "B-level" actor on that American political stage back then, I strongly recommend reading this book - and even adding it to one's personal library. If not for the history-revisionism of the lie of supposed "Democratic-Republican" Party that actually never existed (and perhaps also for the title calling him a "Founding Father" is a little over-the-top a description), I would have viewed this book close to 5-Star rating. Hence, I can only give a rating as one lower level - which is ironicly fitting for this lower "B-level" person in American history.

The Hamilton Collection: The Wisdom and Writings of the Founding Father
"Edited by Dan Tucker"
is a 4-Star book.

[Kim · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was so excited when I came across this book - someone actually looking at some of Alexander Hamilton's letters, both public and personal, and providing commentary and analysis about them and his relationships with the people he was writing to? Sounds utterly fascinating! I couldn't borrow it from my library fast enough!

As I read through it, I did find myself enjoying learning about the background of the selected letters. Hamilton was a incredibly gifted writer and, let's be honest, a fricking genius. Learning more about how he viewed his work in building the nation's finances, and other subjects, was riveting. Not to mention that Hamilton had a gift for making enemies of his fellow Founders, and reading the letters or pamphlets where he's snipping at them was exciting and also a little hilarious.

However, I was disappointed that there wasn't more about his personal life. I would have loved, for instance, to have seen commentary on the letter that Hamilton wrote to his father-in-law, Philip Schuyler, about Hamilton's tiff with Washington in 1781 and his subsequent resignation from Washington's military family. There's a lot to be said for what was going through Hamilton's head at that time. Though, granted, we don't have too many of the letters that Hamilton wrote to Schuyler due to the Schuyler family actually burning many of them after both men's deaths.

Also, I would have loved to have seen more investigation into the letters Hamilton wrote to his wife, Eliza. We see several from their courtship and (roughly) the two years of their marriage, one from the mid-1790s, and then one of the last two letters he wrote to her just before the duel (the "Best of Wives and Best of Women" letter). While Tucker does defend the shortness of this section by pointing out that Hamilton's letters to Eliza "[assume] a routine quality" (i.e. not that interesting), I can easily point out at least a few other letters that are worthy of note. The letters he wrote to her in June 1798, for example. This was the summer after the publishing of the Reynolds Pamphlet (and the birth of their sixth child, William Stephen Hamilton), and Hamilton's tone takes on a very interesting quality as he writes to Eliza while she's on a visit to her parents in Albany. There was *something* going on there, and would be worthy of investigation, or even just some idle speculation.

In addition to this, there are also several errors. Tucker states at the beginning that he gets these letters from the Founders Online website. Now, I will be the first to admit that the website is an utter gem for getting lost in the letters and other writings of the Founders (I'm guilty of that myself), but one should be careful to be aware that it isn't perfect. I've seen at least one letter of Hamilton's on that website in two different places, where the only difference is the date on letter. Every word besides that is exactly the same. So one should treat the website with caution. Still, one thing Founders does do well is their clear marking of who each letter is to and from. Tucker still managed to mess up on at least one occasion (that I spotted - there could be others that I didn't catch), where he states that Hamilton is writing a letter to John Jay, and yet if you look the letter up, you'll find that it wasn't to John Jay, but to John Adams.

Plus, there are just several typos and general errors that an editor ought to have caught (miss-dating a letter, getting the birth order of Hamilton's children wrong, just to name a couple of things). The book needed a more thorough check before going to the publisher.

Overall, I absolutely loved the idea behind this book. The execution of the book, however, was clearly not the best, and it should have gone much further than it did.

[Ashlee · Rating 2 out of 5]

I recently became obsessed with Alexander Hamilton when I listened to the soundtrack of “Hamilton”. So I was really excited when I got this book, but was a bit disappointed by the time I had finished it, Tucker is trying to tell the story of Hamilton’s life through Hamilton’s letters, but sadly Tucker and Hamilton’s writings only vaguely describe him. For someone with ADD and Dyslexia Hamilton’s letter’s are really hard to read sometimes. The reason for this is that Hamilton uses flowery speech and takes a longtime to get to the point, so it is really easy to get lost or even bored. Tucker;s interjections before each new letter can be helpful due to him explaining what the letter is about. The problem with this is that it kind of makes reading Hamilton’s letters pointless, except for the few times that he leaves something out. A good point of this book is that it goes really in dept on early American economy and the creation of banks.

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bit slight, but still a neat primer for those who want to delve beyond the play without digging into Chernow's fantastic bio. The collection does display Hamilton's: 1) genius; 2) depth and breadth, from strategic military and economic concerns to foreign affairs and domestic administration; 3) devotion to family, friends and colleagues; 4) highly readable, often witty, sometimes cutting prose. It also cements several key insights: the need for a strong federal government to corrall the states; the fear that factionalism posed to the republic; the ongoing tension between individual and public interests and the need for government to constantly remind citizens of the importance of the latter.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well crafted collection of the writings of Alexander Hamilton with short introductory notes to place the documents into historical perspective. The excerpts from Hamilton's prodigious writing as well as correspondence receive gives the reader a fascinating look into the life of this controversial and currently popular founding father through the words he put to paper himself. Having read much on Alexander Hamilton I still found this book a great read for someone interested in early American history. I received a free copy of this book through the Goodreads First Reads giveaways

[Rene Bard · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was a curated set of Alexander Hamilton's Essays, Memoranda, and Letters, etc.

One can't help being impressed by Hamilton's intelligence and work ethic. On the negative side, considering that Hamilton considered duels to be immoral because, at the very least, they were illegal, one wonders how such an intelligent person would allow an enemy to manipulate them into a duel - especially since it isn't clear whether Hamilton ever intended to "win" the duel.

Like son, like father - very sad.

[Chris C · Rating 5 out of 5]

I liked this book because it was the actual writings of Alexander Hamilton and it provided great insight about him . I also really enjoyed it because this book talked more about his life as a founding father and as a husband and a father to all of the nine kids he and Elizabeth Schuyler had . This book is a must read if you want to learn more about Hamilton!!

[Lindsay Hickman · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book quickly because I loved reading Hamilton’s own words through the documented letters. The writings from his campaign as Secretary for Washington and continued through his life.
I know a lot of people love reading things about Hamilton because of the musical and if you are like that you will enjoy the book. (You can see similar character traits between the character of Hamilton in the musical and the man’s actual writings.) A great book if you are a history nerd like me!

[Kristi Richardson · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Real liberty is neither found in despotism or the extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments.”

This is a great companion piece to the book Rivals unto Death by Rick Beyer and I received them both at the same time. This book showcases the writings of Alexander Hamilton in annotated version.

Alexander Hamilton is riding high with the new Broadway musical “Hamilton” but few people know of Hamilton’s genius and his writing. His contemporaries thought he wrote too much and he did tend to overdue compared to Aaron Burr’s terse caustic wit.

This is a wonderful source book for Hamilton’s writings, from his first newspaper article to his poetry, love letters and his Federalist papers. The editor, Dan Tucker gives you context within each writing that brings the source alive for your understanding.

I highly recommend this wonderful resource and its great notes to go along with it.
I received this book from a Goodreads Giveaway and really lucked out on this one!

[Michael Teems Jr. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is what I was looking for in my study of Hamilton. I wanted the actual letters transcribed from his hand. The author did a good job of putting together a linear account of his prose. The end of the book left me puzzled. I thought all account of the duel was omitted. But it is simply reorganized under the figures in Hamilton's life at the end of the book. Make sure to complete this book or you miss important letters.

[Jennie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh. Maybe it's because I've read a decent amount about Hamilton, but this was only okay. The format wasn't my favorite either. I dislike when texts jump around and direct you to further information on later pages.

[Michael Deffner · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting, politics was that same "yesterday" as it is today. This was not always an easy read, not the authors issue, but you have to trudge through the syntax as words were used in that day.

[Cyndi Beane-Henry · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an extraordinary collection of the writings of Alexander Hamilton, a founding father who was often misunderstood. Who till this very day has a reputation which few truly understand.

Yet, within this wonderful collection of both political, and private, correspondence, a man emerges like none written of in the history books.

We see him as a young man, not yet 20. With so much aspiration for the future! We see him during the revolution, both as a man, and as someone dreading the next battle to come. We see him as a man who grieves over loss, and celebrates over life's little victories.

A truly remarkable gathering of Hamilton's private, intimate writings helps us to see beyond the politico, and into the heart of just a man like so many others.

If you love history, you will truly enjoy this book. Tucker did a fabulous job of gathering Hamilton's papers. A big salute to you, sir!

You can find the book here  it is $13.51 for the hardcover, plus shipping and handling, and $12.99 for the Kindle version.

I give it five stars,



a big thumbs up,




and my personal recommendation.