The Essential Hamilton prints the texts of eighty-two letters, essays, pamphlets, reports, speeches, and memoranda written or delivered by Alexander Hamilton between 1769 and 1804, as well as the texts of three letters written to Hamilton in 1804 by Aaron Burr during the correspondence that led to their duel and of three statements written by William P. Van Ness and Nathaniel Pendleton, the seconds in the Hamilton-Burr duel. The texts printed here—including the documents written by Burr, Van Ness, and Pendleton—are taken from a digital source, the Alexander Hamilton Papers at Founders Online, a project of the National Historical Publications and Records Commission of the National Archives launched in 2013 in collaboration with the University of Virginia Press (https://founders.archives.gov/, accessed December 20, 2016).
Although the majority of these documents existed only in manuscript at the time of Hamilton’s death, some of them were printed during his lifetime. Hamilton wrote prolifically for the press, publishing numerous pamphlets and newspaper essays both under his own name and under a variety of pseudonyms. His contributions to The Federalist were published contemporaneously in book form; speeches he made in the New York ratifying convention and at political meetings were recorded in shorthand and then published in book form or in newspapers; and some of the reports he submitted to Congress while serving as Secretary of the Treasury were printed as pamphlets.
Three major editions of Hamilton’s writings have been published: The Works of Alexander Hamilton, edited by his son John Church Hamilton (7 volumes, 1850–51); The Works of Alexander Hamilton, edited by Henry Cabot Lodge (9 volumes, 1885–86); and The Papers of Alexander Hamilton, edited by Harold C. Syrett (27 volumes, 1961–87). In his edition, John Church Hamilton freely altered his father’s spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and paragraphing, and sometimes omitted words or passages from the documents he printed. Henry Cabot Lodge also made frequent alterations in Hamilton’s spelling, punctuation, and capitalization in preparing his edition.
In 1955 work began on The Papers of Alexander Hamilton, a new edition sponsored by Columbia University and published by Columbia University Press. The editors of The Papers of Alexander Hamilton collected copies of more than 19,000 documents relating to Hamilton’s life from libraries, archives, manuscript dealers, and private collections. Documents were transcribed and printed without alteration in their spelling and paragraphing, and with minimal alterations in their capitalization and punctuation, mostly in the substitution of periods for dashes used to end sentences and the omission of dashes in instances where a dash appears following a period. Wherever possible, the editors of The Papers of Alexander Hamilton used an autograph manuscript as the source of their text. In cases where no autograph manuscript, manuscript copy, or contemporary printed version of a document was available, the editors of The Papers of Alexander Hamilton took their text from a later printed version, such as the John Church Hamilton or Henry Cabot Lodge edition. For the texts of the first forty-four of Hamilton’s fifty-one contributions to The Federalist, the editors of The Papers of Alexander Hamilton used the newspaper versions published between October 27, 1787, and April 2, 1788, incorporating into these texts some of the variants (largely corrections of errors) that appeared in the first book edition, published in New York by John and Archibald McLean in two volumes on March 22 and May 28, 1788. The texts of Hamilton’s final seven Federalist essays, which did not appear in newspapers prior to book publication, were taken from the McLean first edition. In preparing its digital version of Hamilton’s writings, Founders Online used The Papers of Alexander Hamilton as its source of printed texts.
The Essential Hamilton prints texts as they appear on Founders Online, but with a few alterations in editorial procedure. The bracketed conjectural readings presented in Founders Online, in cases where original manuscripts or printed texts were damaged or difficult to read, are accepted without brackets in this edition when those readings seem to be the only possible ones; but when they do not, or when the Founders Online version makes no conjecture, the missing word or words are indicated by a bracketed two-em space, i.e., [ ]. In cases where Founders Online supplies in brackets letters or words that were omitted from the source text by an obvious slip of the pen or printer’s error, this edition removes the brackets and accepts the editorial emendation. Bracketed or parenthetical editorial insertions used in Founders Online to identify letter recipients, clarify meaning, or supply dates and place-names have been deleted in this edition. In cases where Founders Online uses brackets to indicate which portions of the text of a document are taken from an incomplete manuscript source, as opposed to a later printed source, this edition omits the brackets. Where Founders Online presents a document from a complete manuscript source and uses brackets to insert material that was added in a later printed version of the document, this edition deletes the inserted material and prints the manuscript version of the document. (The material added to “An American No. I,” which was most likely added by Hamilton, is presented in the notes in this edition.) Notes made by Hamilton in the margins of documents, or otherwise outside the flow of text in the original source, are presented at the end of documents in the Founders Online versions, while in this edition they are printed as footnotes on the appropriate page. Founders Online presented the draft of a farewell address enclosed by Hamilton in his letter to George Washington of July 30, 1796, the observations on Aaron Burr that Hamilton enclosed in his letter to John Rutledge Jr. of January 4, 1801, and the letter from Charles Cooper, dated April 23, 1804, enclosed by Burr in his letter to Hamilton of June 18, 1804, as separate documents; this edition prints them immediately below the texts of the letters with which they were enclosed.
Hamilton’s letter to Philip Schuyler of February 18, 1781, is presented by Founders Online in a text in which material deleted by Hamilton while drafting the letter is displayed with lines through the deleted material and with material substituted or added by Hamilton displayed with highlighting. This edition omits the canceled material and prints the highlighted material without highlighting. The draft of the Farewell Address enclosed by Hamilton in his letter to George Washington of July 30, 1796, is presented by Founders Online in a similar manner, with the difference that in this instance the highlighted material also includes words or passages offered by Hamilton as alternatives to uncanceled words and passages in the draft. This edition omits the canceled material and prints highlighted material containing added or substituted wording without highlighting. Three of Hamilton’s errors in the draft of the Farewell Address are treated as slips of the pen and corrected in this edition, even though they were not corrected on Founders Online at 281.30, “successessive” becomes “successive”; at 286.18, “and a and” becomes “and”; and at 290.1, “it vows for” becomes “it.”
In the text of “A Full Vindication of the Measures of the Congress” presented on Founders Online, errata that were printed in a newspaper contemporaneously with the initial pamphlet printing of Hamilton’s essay are presented as footnotes. In this edition, these corrections have been accepted and incorporated into the text printed here: at 12.24, “falibility” becomes “fallibility”; at 13.30, “nutral” becomes “neutral”; at 15.12, “hideous” replaces “tedious”; at 18.11, “engredient” becomes “ingredient”; at 18.20, “denied” replaces “desired”; at 20.31, “commerce; I know” replaces “commerce; know”; at 23.14, “would” replaces “could”; at 27.10–11, “is, not because” replaces “is, because”; at 28.40–29.1, “you, how and” replaces “you, and”; at 34.34, “arguments” replaces “argument”; at 36.33, “heineous” becomes “heinous”; at 37.36 “can” replaces “can’t”; at 38.40, “devised” replaces “desired”; at 39.8, “advices” becomes “advice”; at 39.33, “best” replaces “left.”
The Essential Hamilton presents the texts chosen as sources here but does not attempt to reproduce features of their typographic design. Some headings have been changed, and addresses and endorsements at the end of letters have been omitted, as have the date lines uniformly supplied by Founders Online at the beginning of documents. The texts are printed without alteration except for the changes previously discussed and for the correction of typographical errors. Spelling, punctuation, and capitalization are often expressive features, and they are not altered, even when inconsistent or irregular. The following is a list of typographical errors corrected, cited by page and line number: 8.35, only; 17.4, flourshes; 27.24, bitterst; 31.3, imprisioned; 59.21, explicity; 59.22, impossibily; 82.24–25, dismembrement; 101.2, theire; 110.9, interesting the; 110.24, judicous; 130.2, Præetors; 150.20, it as; 152.21, government.*; 156.7, fewer that; 182.4, confederation.”; 233.32, preverting; 238.13, agrigulcure; 238.28, that is; 243.11, ridicule he,; 253.37, inportant; 275.15, remmant; 279.20, characteristed; 286.12, hostiles; 295.8, his; 324.9, thing; 346.18, Decomocracy; 363.1, State.