ABSTRACT
In the era of the young republic, men and women faced different limitations. The stories of Alexander Hamilton and Nancy Shippen demonstrate some of the limits that a commoner and a wealthy woman faced. Hamilton was a poor immigrant who made good on the shores of revolution and in the corridors of politics. He played his part in holding the nation together, making every attempt to interpret the Constitution in broad terms that would strengthen the country by strengthening the federal government whenever necessary and appropriate. Nancy Shippen was a privileged woman who, although enjoying most of the advantages of her station, was defeated by the unequal power given to men in the early republic. John Marshall, the chief justice of the Supreme Court, rightly commented in a biography of George Washington, "Seldom has any minister excited the opposite passions of love and hate in a higher degree than Colonel Hamilton".
