Narrator: No one, at the time, fully appreciated Hamilton's enormous legacy. But because of his visionary thinking, America had the highest credit rating of any country in the world. When France gave Jefferson the opportunity to purchase the Louisiana Territory and double the area of the United States, money and credit were readily available.
In the nineteenth century, first came the canals, then the railroads, then heavy industry and the huge cities, the boom in technology, and a greater prosperity than the world had ever seen -- all built on bonds and banks, Hamilton's world.
In the coming years, a grateful people celebrate the men who created the country. In the nation's capital, they build large monuments to Washington and Jefferson -- but none to Hamilton.
Carol Berkin, Historian: That he is not acknowledged, I think has a lot to do with the fact that he doesn't talk about liberty. He doesn't talk about the republic. There's not a lot of that. He's really much more about creating policies and institutions. And I don't think we like to memorialize people who do practical things. I think the things that Hamilton did don't fit well on monuments.
Joanne B. Freeman, Historian: Hamilton is about the beginnings of systems, you know. He's someone who sees, has a vision, and knows how to put it into effect. It's really the beginnings of a national government, something that we take for granted -- the beginnings of something orderly and powerful and national, something that sometimes we like and sometimes we don't like so much. But either way, it's not the sort of person that we stand up and cheer for.
Richard J. Payne, Historian: Hamilton focused on one thing. He devoted his whole life to one thing, and that was creating the United States. Whether it's financial, whether it's constitutional, whether it's the army, you name it, its Hamilton's. He doesn't need a monument. We live in Hamilton's monument -- this United States. This is Hamilton's monument. And when we talk about the American dream, we're talking about Hamilton's dream.
Narrator: Hamilton's grave is behind Trinity Church in New York City. It is steps away from the site of the Treasury Office, where he first laid out his blueprint for America's future as a strong, united, self-reliant nation. Around the corner is Wall Street and the Stock Exchange, that mighty financial engine that he helped create.
Throughout his life, this orphan immigrant from the West Indies felt that he never really belonged -- that this American world was not made for him. This was only partly true. Alexander Hamilton did belong -- he belonged to the future.