In his ambition to rise above his humble beginnings, Hamilton appeared to have frequently swallowed his anti-slavery sentiments as he pushed for acceptance into America’s colonial elite—most of whom enslaved people. In 1780, he married into the wealthy, slaveholding Schuyler family. As a New York delegate to the 1787 Constitutional Convention, Hamilton saw the need for compromise in order to establish a new, strong federal government, so he supported the so-called “three-fifths” clause, which counted each enslaved worker as three-fifths of a person for the purposes of determining state population.
Hamilton had been among the founders of the New York Manumission Society, which sought the gradual emancipation of enslaved people in the state. Hamilton served as the secretary of the organization, which established the New York African Free School and aided in the passage of a 1799 state law that freed the children of enslaved people.
Read more about Hamilton HERE.