The Democratic-Republican party which believed in the “power of the masses” and the rule of the people was founded by Thomas Jefferson. The Federalist party, which believed in a centralized government patterned on the aristocratic one of England, was founded by Alexander Hamilton. Little is known about the family and early life of Hamilton. He was born in the little West India island of Nevis in January, 1757. His father is supposed to have been a Scotch trader and his mother a Frenchwoman. His family was poor, and it was necessary for him to leave school in childhood and set to work. At the age of twelve, he became a clerk in a counting-house where he remained about three years. Every spare moment was spent in the study of mathematics, chemistry, and history. He was so faithful in his work, however, that at the age of thirteen or fourteen he was left in charge of business during his employer’s absence. [Illustration: ALEXANDER HAMILTON] In 1772 the island of Santa Cruz was visited by a terrible hurricane; young Hamilton wrote such a vivid and eloquent account of it that his friends thought he ought to become a professional man and offered to help him continue his education. Accordingly, in October, 1772, he set sail to the colonies. Leaving the West Indies, he cut loose from his old life; of friends and relatives there, almost nothing is heard after this time. Young Hamilton attended a grammar school in New Jersey, and then entered King’s College, now Columbia University, in New York. The young West Indian came to America at a time when people were greatly excited about political matters, and he heard much about the Stamp Act and the oppressive taxes laid by Great Britain. At first he took the part of the king, but in less than two years he had become an enthusiastic patriot. It was the cause of the colonies as a whole that appealed to him. He never developed any of the feeling for the separate colonies which was so strong in most native-born Americans. When he espoused the cause of the oppressed colonies, he did it with his whole heart. The precocious, clever boy of seventeen made patriotic addresses, and published an able pamphlet, entitled, “A Full Vindication of the Measures of Congress from the Calumnies of their Enemies” (1774). In this pamphlet he stated the case of the colonies clearly and eloquently. He said, “All men have one common origin; they participate in one common nature, and consequently have one common right. No reason can be advanced why one man should exercise any power or preëminence over his fellow-creatures, unless they have voluntarily vested him with it. Since then, Americans have not by any act of their own empowered the British Parliament to make laws for them, it follows that they can have no just authority to do it.” Hamilton believed in the enforcement of law and order. On one or two occasions, when mobs had set out to attack royalists’ houses, he persuaded them to respect private property and opinions.