Narrator: With peace on the way, Hamilton has returned to Albany and rejoined his wife and firstborn son, Philip.
Alexander Hamilton (as portrayed by actor): I am becoming acquainted with the character of our little stranger. He is truly a fine young gentleman, with the most agreeable conversation and manners I ever knew. Alas, he stands rather awkwardly and his legs do not have the delicate slimness of his father. Some have remarked on his method of waving his arms when he talks, showing all the signs that he will someday be a great orator.
Narrator: Hamilton determines to become a lawyer -- a course of study that usually takes three years. Hamilton does it in six months.
He moves his family to a new home in New York City. The address, 57 Wall Street. He soon becomes one of the most successful of the city's thirty-five lawyers. But Hamilton has his eye on a larger stage.
Gordon S. Wood, Historian: He wants to be a statesman of the highest order. Coming out of Roman and Greek history, he wants to be a creator of a state -- and that is what's moving him I think, driving him. Hamilton was interested in honor, both for himself -- honor being reputation -- both for himself and for the country. And the two were linked, and he was going to achieve his honor if the country achieved its honor.
Narrator: As the last soldiers head for home in the early 1780s, few people are thinking about the honor of the nation. The United States is bankrupt and disunified. It's not even clear whether the states are to be truly united, or revert to a loose collection of largely independent governments.
Carol Berkin, Historian: It was as if you made this revolution and you hadn't thought about what would happen the next day, after the revolution was over. And all the enthusiasm sort of began to fritter away as different states began to argue with one another over who controlled this land, and who controlled the Chesapeake Bay, and you can't ship your goods into my state because your money isn't the same as my money. And quibbling and fighting and rivalry, the way it had been before.
Joanne B. Freeman, Historian: And so people like Hamilton actually think, well wait, did we win the war? Are we going to now sort of inch our way back into sort of useless, humiliating powerlessness? And, you know, are we ultimately going to just turn on each other and end up being nothing?
Narrator: At the end of the war, Hamilton is almost alone in his determination to change the direction of the country. George Washington has returned to private life and is running his plantation in Virginia. John Adams and Benjamin Franklin are in Europe, elder statesmen in the country's Foreign Service.
Of all the country's principal founders, Hamilton is by far the youngest, and the only founder without a deep attachment to one particular state.
Gordon S. Wood, Historian: Having come from the Caribbean, he had no sense of the kind of loyalty that, say, Jefferson had to Virginia or even John Adams had to Massachusetts, which they called their countries. When they talked about my country, Jefferson meant Virginia. So Hamilton had none of this, he tended to think in terms of the United States.
Narrator: Hamilton is elected a member of the Confederation Congress, the weak governing body set up by the states during the Revolution.
Alexander Hamilton (as portrayed by actor): Our job is to make independence work, but what a terrible situation we're in. The country has galloping consumption. The case is getting desperate.
I've a powerful remedy for this problem -- strong government -- but if not taken quickly, the patient will die.
Joanne B. Freeman, Historian: Hamilton is really, remarkably, one of the first -- and certainly the most persistent person -- calling for a stronger government, a more organized, centralized, national government of some kind. He's really sort of out there in a way that's just really noticeable.
Narrator: Hamilton forms an ambitious plan -- to completely transform this loose collection of states into a true republic, one with a powerful central government. It will be a battle that he will wage for the next six years of his life.
Carol Berkin, Historian: Very quickly, he begins to develop a strategy. He starts orchestrating a series of little meetings of states to talk about trade negotiations. And he drafts this Annapolis report that makes it sound as if there's this groundswell of interest in producing a thirteen-state meeting. And it should go beyond trade negotiations; we've discovered there are other issues that we might want to talk over. And it's his strategy that really is the thread that builds to the Constitutional Convention.
Alexander Hamilton (as portrayed by actor): As a General marches at the head of his troops, so wise political leaders march at the head of affairs. They don't wait for events, but know what actions to take. The actions they take will produce the events.
Narrator: In May 1787, Hamilton joins the other fifty-four delegates in Philadelphia.
After four months of intensive debate, the result is a four-page document -- the United States Constitution.
The Constitution proposes a radical shift in power, from the individual states to a strong, central government and a president with real authority.
But the writing of the Constitution is only the first step in Hamilton's battle. Nine of the thirteen states must ratify before the Constitution can become law. Up and down the country there is fierce opposition.
Gordon S. Wood, Historian: The Anti-Federalists, or those opposed to the Constitution, are frightened of the very things that the Patriots in the 1760s had been frightened of. They had just thrown off Great Britain, 3,000 miles away, and now they're re-imposing on themselves this powerful government with a kind of an elected king -- and we can see the presidency is a, you know, enormously powerful office. They were frightened of all that, because this was a violation of everything the Revolution had been about.
Narrator: Hamilton launches into a major campaign to fight the Anti-Federalists and persuade the country to ratify the Constitution. Together with James Madison and John Jay, he conceives and writes a series of brilliant articles that will come to be called The Federalist Papers.
Alexander Hamilton (as portrayed by actor): The main question is whether societies of men are really capable of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force.
Jimmy Napoli, Hamilton Tour Guide: In the first Federalist Paper, Hamilton accepts that he's going to try and break down the Constitution for all Americans, and to argue and to debate and to fight until every single question is answered. He's going to prove, once and for all, that the Constitution is the best form of government we can adopt.
Gordon S. Wood, Historian: Is the president too strong? What's the role of the judiciary? Why should we have a senate? It's kind of high-level propaganda, opposing the Anti-Federalist objections to the Constitution.
Narrator: The Federalist Papers are published in newspapers, one or two a week over the next seven months.
Alexander Hamilton (as portrayed by actor): Laws are a dead letter without courts to expound and define their true meaning and operation.
Joanne B. Freeman, Historian: Some of those things are first drafts. Some of those things are things that, as he's finishing them, the printer is there waiting to take them away because they need to get into that day's newspaper.
Alexander Hamilton (as portrayed by actor): Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint.
Ron Chernow, Biographer: The Federalist Papers have become the classic gloss on the U.S. Constitution, cited about three hundred times over the last two centuries by the Supreme Court -- more than any other document. The Federalist Papers have almost acquired the authority of the Constitution itself, they're cited so frequently.
Narrator: Over the next year, the states -- one by one -- ratify the Constitution. New York, one of the largest and most powerful states, overwhelmingly opposes it. But New York City supports it, and elects Hamilton to lead its delegation to the ratifying convention.
Alexander Hamilton (as portrayed by actor): We have several things in our favor. Everyone loves Washington, and he supports it. All the commercial interests are on our side -- they want a government which can regulate trade. On the other side are all those inferior men with very superior positions in local government. They're afraid of losing their power to a national government, where, of course, they don't stand a chance of getting elected.
Narrator: Hamilton is determined to fight the Anti-Federalist majority at the convention, and to prevail at all costs.
Carol Berkin, Historian: He was really sort of the bull in the china shop. I think one of his greatest difficulties was that, time and time again, he proved he was smarter than other people, and so he could not understand why they didn't shut up and listen to him. He had very little training in the art of politics as a young man. I mean, think about all of these men of the revolutionary generation. Their fathers were in the colonial legislature, their grandfathers were. Politics was talked about at the dinner table. You heard mistakes that people made. You learned finesse. Hamilton never had that.
Alexander Hamilton (as portrayed by actor): On this and every other occasion, I will counter directly, without detour, any obstacle that stands in my way.
Narrator: What Alexander Hamilton lacks in political finesse, he makes up for in his brilliance as a debater. At the convention, he makes long, lawyerly speeches defending the new Constitution clause by clause. Sometimes overbearing, sometimes condescending, he makes it easy for Anti-Federalists to cast him as an elitist.
Robert Bartlett (as portrayed by actor: You men of "learning," you lawyers will take control of this federal government. Ordinary people with good sense will never be able to get elected. And after you grab all the power and the money, you'll swallow up all us little folk. This will be a government run by and for a tyrannical aristocracy.
Alexander Hamilton (as portrayed by actor): And whom would you have representing us in government? Not the rich, not the wise, not the learned? Would you go to some ditch by the highway and pick up the thieves, the poor, and the lame to lead us? Yes, we need an aristocracy to be running our government -- an aristocracy of intelligence, integrity and experience.
Carol Berkin, Historian: He really is a master in this convention of winning people over, beating people down, wearing people out, stalling. And finally, issuing a few well-placed threats that turn the convention, which should have voted no, into a yes convention.
Narrator: The Constitution becomes the law of the land. New York City celebrates its most steadfast supporter.
Carol Berkin, Historian: This, I think, is one of the few moments when he's popularly acknowledged in his entire career. Nobody walks around going, "Yeah, Bank of the United States -- great idea." But the ratification, he really is recognized for that.
Richard J. Payne, Historian: It's kind of ironic; it took an outsider to unite the United States. That's one reason why Hamilton is the indispensable Founding Father, along with President Washington.
Narrator: With his brilliance and sheer force of personality, Hamilton has won this battle. But he has also made many enemies.
Ron Chernow, Biographer: The smartest person in the room is always admired, but seldom liked, you know? Always respected, but often feared.