The Bank that Hamilton Built - In Brief

Blueprint for a bank

The First Bank of the United States, championed by Alexander Hamilton, formed the blueprint for today's monetary economy based on a stable currency and access to credit.
The bank worked hand in hand with the first Treasury secretary's other financial reforms—paying off war debt and establishing a stable monetary standard—to put the federal government's finances in order and stoke the fires of enterprise at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.
Political opposition doomed Hamilton's bank. But the institution he created laid the foundation for a second national bank and, almost a century later, for the establishment of the Federal Reserve System.