Hamilton

** Alexander Hamilton at the White House (sort of)** check out Tony award-winner Lin-Manuel Miranda's performance in November 2009 at the White House!

**Good news!**  In case you hadn't heard, the Brookings Institution launched the "Hamilton Project"

**Great stuff!** Still one of the best resources for learning about Hamilton online is the New York Historical Society's exhibition site, which they launched in 2004!

Here are some of the reasons I adore Hamilton!

Alexander Hamilton was the First Secretary of the Treasury, primary author of the Federalist Papers, principal convener of the Constitutional Convention, General George Washington's Aide-De-Camp, and the orginial flaming moderate, if ever there was one.  He believed that government while limited, should be energetic, productive, and efficient.

In Federalist 70, he argued: "Energy in the executive is a leading character in the definition of good government...A feeble executive implies a feeble execution of the government.  A feeble execution is but another phrase for bad execution: And a government ill executed, whatever it may be in theory, must be in practice a bad government" (Freeman, 2001:374).

To read more of the Federalist Papers, see Yale's Avalon Project:

But it isn't just that Alexander Hamilton was a brilliant thinker.  It is that he had a deep heart and was a committed romantic, not in the head-in-the-clouds, poetry-reading troubador sense of the word, but in the knight-in-shining armor, battling dragons sense of the word.

He wrote a letter to Elizabeth Schuyler (who would later become his wife), which leaves me breathless:

"I would not have you imagine, Miss, that I write you so often to gratify your wishes or please your vanity; but merely to indulge myself, and to comply with that restless propensity of my mind which will not be happy unless I am doing something in which you are concerned.  This may seem an idle disposition in a philosopher and soldier, but I can plead illustrious examples in my justification.  Achilles liked to have sacrificed Greece and his glory to a female captive, and Athony lost a world for a woman.  I am very sorry times are so changed as to oblige me to go to antiquity for my apology, but I confess, to the disgrace of the present time, that I have not been able to find many who are as far gone as myself in the laudable zeal of the fair sex.  I suspect, however, if others knew the charm of my sweetheart as I do, I could have a great number of competitors" (Atherton, 1903:74-75).

He was also fiery and combative, and had no trouble whatsoever calling out those individuals whom he believed were doing harm to the Union.  In 1792, he wrote a letter to Edward Carrington where he expressed his disappointment with James Madison for turning against the national government (and he and Washington) in favor of the states.  He also spoke of his disrespect for Thomas Jefferson for his slandering the administration that he was apart of.  Hamilton explained how he distrusted Jefferson and he went on to describe what he saw as his political motives.  He wrote:

"In almost all the questions, great and small, which have arisen since the first session of Congress, Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Madison have been found among those who are disposed to narrow the federal authority...

This kind of conduct has appeared to me the more extraordinary on the part of Mr. Madison, as I know for a certainty, it was a primary article in his creed, that the real danger in our system was the subversion of the national authority by the preponderancy of the State governments...

Mr. Jefferson, it is known, did not in the first instance cordially acquiesce in the new Constitution for the United States; he had many doubts and reserves. He left this country before we had experienced the imbecilities of the former.

In France, he saw government only on the side of its abuses. He drank freely of the French philo sophy, in religion, in science, in politics. He came from France in the moment of a fermentation, which he had a share in exciting, and in the passions and feelings of which he shared both from temperament and situation. He came here probably with a too partial idea of his own powers; and with the expectation of a greater share in the direction of our councils than he has in reality enjoyed. I am not sure that he had not peculiarly marked out for himself the department of the finances.

He came, electrified with attachment to France, and with the project of knitting together the two countries in the closest political bands.

Mr. Madison had always entertained an exalted opinion of the talents, knowledge, and virtues of Mr. Jefferson. The sentiment was probably reciprocal. A close correspondence subsisted between them during the time of Mr. Jefferson's absence from the country. A close intimacy arose upon his return.

Whether any peculiar opinions of Mr. Jefferson's concerning the public debt wrought a change in the sentiments of Mr. Madison (for it is certain that the former is more radically wrong than the latter), or whether Mr. Madison, seduced by the expectation of, popularity, and possibly by the calculation of advantage to the State of Virginia, was led to change his own opinion, certain it is that a very material change took place, and that the two gentlemen were united in the new ideas. Mr. Jefferson was indiscreetly open in his approbation of Mr. Madison's principles, upon his first coming to the seat of government. I say indiscreetly, because a gentleman in the administration, in one department, ought not to have taken sides against another, in another department. The course of this business and a variety of circumstances which took place left Mr. Madison a very discontented and chagrined man, and begot some degree of ill-humor in Mr. Jefferson. Attempts were made by these gentlemen, in different ways, to produce a commercial warfare with Great Britain. In this, too, they were disappointed. And, as they had the liveliest wishes on the subject, their dissatisfaction has been proportionably great; and, as I had not favored the project, I was comprehended in their displeasure.

These causes, and perhaps some others, created, much sooner than I was aware of it, a systematic opposition to me, on the part of these gentlemen. My subversion, I am now satisfied, has been long an object with them.

Subsequent events have increased the spirit of opposition and the feelings of personal mortification on the part of these gentlemen. 

A mighty stand was made on the affair of the bank. There was much commitment in that case. I pre vailed. On the mint business I was opposed from the same quarters and with still less success. In the affair of ways and means for the Western expedition, on the supplementary arrangements concerning the debt, except as to the additional assumption, my views have been equally prevalent in opposition to theirs. This current of success on the one side and of defeat on the other has rendered the opposition furious, and has produced a disposition to subvert their competitors, even at the expense of the government.

Another circumstance has contributed to widening the breach. 'T is evident, beyond a question, from every movement, that Mr. Jefferson aims with ardent desire at the Presidential chair..." (Lodge, 1904, Vol. IX: 365)

To read more of this letter and others please contact me, I am happy to refer several wonderful books on the subject.