NATURAL, AS IN CREATED:

Hamilton came to the American colonies as a young immigrant as the tensions with Great Britain were coming to a head in the mid-1770s. He studied ancient and Enlightenment thinkers at King's College and developed a Lockean political philosophy that prized natural rights and republican self-government.

In his 1775 Farmer Refuted pamphlet, he argued for universal natural rights. "The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for, among old parchments, or musty records," he wrote. "They are written, by the hand of divinity itself; and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power." The purpose of government was to protect the natural rights of the sovereign people, who could overthrow an unjust government that failed to fulfill its purpose. [...]

During the 1780s, Hamilton joined the antislavery New York Manumission Society. He believed that slavery was a moral evil and a contradiction of any natural-rights regime. During the war, he had backed friend John Lauren's plan to emancipate slaves in South Carolina if the slaves would bear arms for the patriot cause. Ultimately, though, abolition was not Hamilton's main cause. He adopted a longer view, one devoted to building a well-governed republic that protected the inalienable rights of all.

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