that Hamilton was born and raised Jewish, but little is known for certain. As a youth in the West Indies, Hamilton was an orthodox and conventional Presbyterian of the New Lights; he was taught there by a student of John Witherspoon, a moderate of the New School. He wrote two or three hymns, which were published in the local newspaper. Robert Troup, his college roommate, noted that Hamilton was "in the habit of praying on his knees night and morning". According to Gordon Wood, Hamilton dropped his youthful religiosity during the Revolution and became "a conventional liberal with theistic inclinations who was an irregular churchgoer at best"; however, he returned to religion in his last years. Chernow wrote that Hamilton was nominally an Episcopalian, but: Stories were circulated that Hamilton had made two quips about God at the time of the Constitutional Convention in 1787. During the French Revolution, he displayed a utilitarian approach to using religion for political ends, such as by maligning Jefferson as "the atheist", and insisting that Christianity and Jeffersonian democracy were incompatible. After 1801, Hamilton further attested his belief in Christianity, proposing a Christian Constitutional Society in 1802 to take hold of "some strong feeling of the mind" to elect "fit men" to office, and advocating "Christian welfare societies" for the poor. After being shot, Hamilton spoke of his belief in God's mercy. Legacy Constitution Hamilton's interpretations of the Constitution set forth in The Federalist Papers remain highly influential, as seen in scholarly studies and court decisions. Although the Constitution was ambiguous as to the exact balance of power between national and state governments, Hamilton consistently took the side of greater federal power at the expense of the states. As secretary of the treasury, he established—against the intense opposition of Secretary of State Jefferson—the country's first de facto central bank. Hamilton justified the creation of this bank, and other federal powers, under Congress's constitutional authority to issue currency, regulate interstate commerce, and do anything else that would be "necessary and proper" to enact the provisions of the Constitution. On the other hand, Jefferson took a stricter view of the Constitution. Parsing the text carefully, he found no specific authorization for a national bank. This controversy was eventually settled in McCulloch v. Maryland, which essentially adopted Hamilton's view, granting the federal government broad freedom to select the best means to execute its constitutionally enumerated powers, essentially