Prior to that, Hamilton achieved widespread recognition and public approval for his actions as Intendant (mayor) of the city of Charleston, South Carolina in 1822, during the period when plans for a slave rising were revealed.

He helped shape the public perception of the Court proceedings and the reasons for the revolt, as well as gaining legislation in 1822 for more controls on slaves and free people of color.

With Hamilton's leadership, the City Council commissioned a Court of Magistrates and Freeholders to review the cases, hear testimony, and determine guilt and punishment.

On July 1, the court published its initial findings related to the first 30 suspects: declaring Denmark Vesey and five slaves guilty of conspiracy and condemning them to death.

But, Hamilton captured the public opinion of the events, publishing a 46-page article in August, taking credit for the city's actions in preventing a huge uprising and bloodbath.

Historian Lacy K. Ford has said, "the balance of the evidence clearly points to the exaggeration of the plot and the misappropriation of its lessons by Hamilton, the Court, and their allies for their own political advantage.

Hamilton was successful in gaining passage of state laws to achieve his goals,[3] including the Seaman's Act of 1822, which required free black sailors to be imprisoned when their ships were in port in Charleston, to prevent their coming into contact with slaves in the city.

Increasingly at odds with the national government, Hamilton declined to be nominated for another term and returned to his home state to prepare for confrontation.

Subsequent to that, he made a number of poor business decisions, aggravated by the Panic of 1837, and leaving him deeply in debt for hundreds of thousands of dollars by 1839 – a condition often shared by other planters.

Perhaps because his condition reminded them unpleasantly of their own, Hamilton's struggles with debt and poor decision-making caused a steep decline over the next twenty years in his reputation among the planter class in South Carolina.

He was appointed as loan commissioner for Texas by President Mirabeau Lamar and traveled to Europe to try to secure much-needed credit for the new republic.

In 1857, while Hamilton was returning by the steamboat Opelousas to Texas from Washington, D.C., his ship was hit by the Galveston and exploded on fire; it sank within half an hour off Avery Island, Louisiana, in the Gulf of Mexico.