opposed Adams' re-election campaign. Jefferson and Aaron Burr tied for the presidency in the electoral college and, despite philosophical differences, Hamilton endorsed Jefferson to defeat Burr, whom he found unprincipled. Vice President Burr ran for governor of New York in 1804 and Hamilton campaigned against him as unworthy. Taking offense, Burr challenged him to a duel in which Burr shot Hamilton, who died the next day. Scholars generally regard Hamilton as an astute and intellectually brilliant administrator, politician, and financier, if often impetuous. His ideas are credited with laying the foundation for American government and finance. Early life and education Alexander Hamilton was born and spent part of his childhood in Charlestown, the capital of the island of Nevis in the British Leeward Islands. Hamilton and his older brother James Jr. were born out of wedlock to Rachel Faucette, a married woman of half-British and half-French Huguenot descent, and James A. Hamilton, a Scotsman who was the fourth son of Alexander Hamilton, the laird of Grange, Ayrshire. Hamilton's mother had been married previously on Saint Croix, then ruled by Denmark, to Danish or German merchant Johann Michael Lavien. They had one son, Peter Lavien. In 1750, Faucette left her husband and first son before travelling to Saint Kitts, where she met James Hamilton. Hamilton and Faucette moved together to Nevis, her birthplace, where she had inherited a seaside lot in town from her father. The Church of England denied membership and education to Alexander and James Jr. because their parents were not legally married. While their mother lived, they received "individual tutoring" and classes in a private school led by a Jewish headmistress. Alexander supplemented his education with a family library of 34 books. James Hamilton later abandoned Rachel Faucette and their two sons, allegedly to "spar[e] [her] a charge of bigamy... after finding out that her first husband intend[ed] to divorce her under Danish law on grounds of adultery and desertion." Thereafter, Rachel moved with her two children to Saint Croix, where she supported them by keeping a small store in Christiansted. She contracted yellow fever and died on February 19, 1768, leaving Hamilton orphaned. This may have had severe emotional consequences for him, even by the standards of an 18th-century childhood. In probate court, Faucette's "first husband seized her estate" and obtained the few valuables that she had owned, including some household silver. Many items were auctioned off,