In a time when a small minority of former colonists took up arms against Great Britain, Alexander Hamilton was among them.
He served as an artillery officer and subsequently on the Staff of General Washington. Like the other senior military and political officers of the new country, he risked possible hanging if captured.
Alexander Hamilton lead an assault on a British redoubt at Yorktown.
He resisted the call for a military takeover of the hapless non-government under the Articles of Confederation.
He was a delegate to the Annapolis convention of 1786 and largely responsible for the constitutional convention the next year.
On June 18th of the federal convention he launched a strategic assault on the minds of deadlocked delegates. His all day speech in support of a parliamentary system as an alternative to the Randolph and Paterson Plans shocked his fellow delegates into making the decision to dump the Articles of Confederation and offer a new plan of government.