Alexander Hamilton And The Early American Federal Banking System

Alexander Hamilton is not only one of the United States founding father, but afamous politician, a thinker, the national finance business originator and practitioner.Hamilton’s most important contributions are two things. One is to participate indrafting the United States Constitution. The second is to make every effort on thedevelopment of capitalist economy to end the financial chaos. As the first TreasurySecretary of the United States, he submitted a series of reports with economicpolicies to the Congress. The most important one is the establishment of "America’sFirst Bank”. Hamilton’s economic systems and practical experiences of the FirstBank have been always affecting the early American Federal Banking System.This paper discusses the formation of the Hamilton Economic Thought of theearly American Federal Banking System. It is mainly related to two issues,Hamilton’s economic thoughts and the formation process of the federal bankingsystem. For the former, it describe that the economic thoughts come from politicalideology and serve the political purposes. The latter is analyzed from what Hamiltonadvocated during the several adjustments of the early American Federal BankingSystem.This paper is divided into three parts. The first part mainly explains Hamilton’seconomic thoughts. The second is to analyze the initial attempt of the earlyAmerican Federal Banking system-American First Bank, which is the main part ofthis article. The third part discusses American Second Bank, the National Bank Act,the Aldrich Plan, and the Federal Reserve Act, which reflected Hamilton economicthoughts. It also discusses the influences of Hamilton’s economic thoughts to thedevelopment and the ultimate establishment of the early American Federal BankingSystem.