The papers of Alexander Hamilton (ca. 1757-1804), first treasury secretary of the United States, consist of his personal and public correspondence, drafts of his writings (although not his Federalist essays), and correspondence among members of the Hamilton and Schuyler families. The collection, consisting of approximately 12,000 items dating from 1708 to 1917, documents Hamilton's impoverished Caribbean boyhood (scantily); events in the lives of his family and that of his wife, Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton; his experience as a Revolutionary War officer and aide-de-camp to General George Washington; his terms as a New York delegate to the Continental Congress (1782-1783) and the Constitutional Convention (1787); and his careers as a New York state legislator, United States treasury secretary (1789-1795), political writer, and lawyer in private practice. Most of the papers date from 1777 until Hamilton's death in 1804. Additional details may be found in the collection's finding aid (HTML and PDF versions).

Among the many correspondents in the papers are John Adams, Angelica Schuyler Church, Henry Clay, Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton, John Jay, Thomas Jefferson, Rufus King, the Marquis de Lafayette, Pierre Charles L'Enfant, James McHenry, James Monroe, Robert Morris, Timothy Pickering, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, Philip Schuyler, Baron von Steuben, Robert Troup, George Washington, James Wilkinson, and Oliver Wolcott, Jr.

The federal government bought the bulk of the Hamilton papers in 1848. They were transferred from the State Department to the Library of Congress in 1904. Additional papers came to the Library of Congress later through gifts and purchases from the Hamilton family and other sources. Papers accumulated through 1981 were scanned from the microfilm edition made that year, and items acquired since were digitized from the originals.

Between 1961 and 1987, Columbia University Press published a twenty-seven-volume edition of the Papers of Alexander Hamilton, edited by Harold C. Syrett. Between 1964 and 1981, Columbia University Law School published a five-volume-edition of Hamilton's legal papers, with Julius Goebel as editor. These two editions have been used as definitive sources in the verification of names and in the dating and identification of manuscripts in the Hamilton Papers at the Library of Congress.

Although this collection is the largest gathering of Alexander Hamilton papers at the Library of Congress, there are significant additional groups of Hamilton letters and other papers in other Library of Congress collections, notably in the George Washington Papers. To identify these collections, consult the bibliography under Related Resources or conduct a search for "Hamilton, Alexander" in the Library of Congress online catalog.

Description of Series

The collection is arranged in eight series as follows.