“How does a
bastard, orphan, son of a whore and a
Scotsman, dropped
in the middle of a forgotten
Spot in the
Caribbean by Providence, impoverished, in squalor
Grow up to be a
hero and a scholar?”
This is the arresting
beginning of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s remarkable hip hop musical drama
‘Hamilton’. The play attempts to capture
the life of perhaps the most controversial founding father in American history. And what a life it was. Here is Hamilton’s early story as told by the
company of “Hamilton - An American Musical” in the the opening song, filmed on stage as a special to the 2016 Grammy's.
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| "Alexander Hamilton" |
Rather than tell
Alexander Hamilton’s compelling story in chronological fashion I’m going to
sketch it out from some of the prominent themes that resonate throughout
‘Hamilton – An American Musical’
Washington On Your Side
This poor orphan
sent to the New York colony by kind benefactors wandered his way into the
American Revolution. He made reputation
for himself in the early days of the war as an artillery officer. A number of commanders saw in the brilliant,
energetic twenty year-old the makings of an ideal staff officer, and in 1777
Alexander Hamilton joined George Washington's staff. This would begin a lifelong relationship that
would define trajectory of the young man’s life. Under General Washington both chaffed under
the strains of administration while also honing his political and
administrative gifts. 
Washington gave
him the chance to be a war hero at the Battle of Yorktown. As president, Washington placed him over the
new treasury department where Hamilton’s grand and farsighted vision
established the economic system that allowed the United States to become the
greatest economy in history. George
Washington’s adept handling of the mercurial and polarizing aspects of
Alexander Hamilton’s personality allowed both men to forge an enduring
friendship and profoundly shape the practical outworking of the new United
States.
Best of Wives and
Best of Women
In 1780 Alexander
Hamilton married Elizabeth Schuyler, whom he would at the end of his life
memorably call, ‘the best of wives and the best of women’. The woman whom he affectionately called
‘Eliza’ gave the orphaned Alexander a home and an extended family he had never
known. Eliza proved to be the steadying
influence in Alexander’s hectic, controversial life. She was the committed mother of their eight
children, the manager of his constantly disrupted personal affairs, the steady companion
in his defeats, the north star in his lost times. Perhaps most compellingly, Eliza Hamilton was
a woman of deep Christian faith who used her influential position for the good
of others and the advance of the Gospel.
It was this deep faith that allowed her to survive the loss of her
oldest son in a duel and decades of slanderous accusations against her
husband. But it is the remarkable grace
that she extended in the years following the personal crisis and public
humiliation of Alexander’s cruel infidelity, the courageous forgiveness that
humbled her arrogant husband, that stands as perhaps her greatest spiritual
legacy. That she lived the remaining fifty years of her life after the tragic
death of Alexander active for good in the world and committed to the best
ideals they shared is a testimony to a truly exceptional woman.
Like You’re Running Out of Time
Perhaps the dominant aspect of Alexander Hamilton’s
character was an inner drive that compelled him forward throughout his life. At
times it produced astounding feats of human achievement – like creating an
unprecedented national economic system to support a constitutional government of
the likes that the world had never seen.
It led him to write volumes of papers, pamphlets and speeches, bringing brilliant
and compelling arguments to bear on almost any topic that got his
attention. He has been called by one
historian, ‘the nation’s first blogger’.
At times, however, the drive was fueled by a relentless campaign to
protect and burnish his personal reputation, leading him to actions that were
misguided at best and ultimately tragic for himself and others. Hamilton’s
unconscionable adultery and the inexplicable attempt to defend his honor at the
expense of his marriage in the Reynolds Pamphlet shows the deep character flaws
that ran concurrent with his unquestioned talents. It was obsessive drive to defend and promote
his reputation that led Alexander Hamilton to the morning of July 11, 1804 and
his fateful duel with Aaron Burr on the cliffs of Weehauken overlooking the
Hudson River. Hamilton’s deep-seated
inability to let slights pass, to step back and consider his actions where his
honor was challenged was his lifelong and ultimately life-defining flaw.
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| Bitter ideological rivals - Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson |
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| Jefferson and Hamilton Rap Battle |
Perhaps no one captured these two sides of Alexander Hamilton’s ambition better than Benjamin Franklin.
“He
means well for his country, is always an honest man, often a wise one, but
sometimes, and in some things, absolutely out of his senses.”
Forgiveness. Can you
Imagine?
Alexander Hamilton was a man of towering intellect,
unwavering patriotism, and deeply entrenched personal pride. But what was the state of his soul? The philosophical grounding of the American Revolution
was fueled as much by Enlightenment humanism as anything else. Yet our founding Fathers wrestled with the
question of where God fit in it all.
Some, like Thomas Jefferson, seemed to revel in the man-centered
rationalism that was sweeping through Europe at the time. Others, like George Washington, seemed to
straddle both worlds, consciously honoring the God of Christianity without
clear statements of trust in Jesus Christ.
Where was Alexander Hamilton in all this? We know that in his youth he ascribed to the
Reformed tradition of protestant Christian belief. It seems that his public life and published
words seemed to offer little evidence of what would be considered an
evangelical belief in the Gospel. But we
also know that in his later years he was returning to the faith of his
youth. The tragedies in his life and his
hard experience in the world had pressed on his heart in his last few
years. He witnessed the robust
evangelicalism of his wife and longed to see what happened to her happen to
himself.
If it is true that the best place to look for the state of
one’s soul before God is in the final conscious moments before death, then we
have a pretty good idea of where Alexander Hamilton placed his trust. In the hours after the duel with Aaron Burr
that left him mortally wounded, Hamilton wanted more than anything to receive
the Lord’s Supper. Unable to obtain it
from his Episcopal priest he asked for his Presbyterian minister-friend John
Mason to give him communion. Mason wisely engaged the dying but coherent man as
to the reason he fixed on this one desire.
As biographer Ron Chernow lays it out from eyewitness accounts, Mason
sought to ascertain the state of Alexander Hamilton’s faith. Here’s some of
that account.
“Aside
from his strongly protective feelings toward his family, Hamilton was
preoccupied with spiritual matters in a way that eliminates all doubt about the
sincerity of his late-flowering religious interests... Mason tried to console Hamilton by saying
that all men had sinned and were equal in the Lord’s sight. “I perceive it to
be so,” Hamilton said. “I am a sinner. I look to His mercy.” Hamilton also
stressed his hatred of dueling: “I used every expedient to avoid the interview,
but I have found for some time past that my life must be exposed to that man. I
went to the field determined not to take his life.” As Mason told how Christ’s
blood would wash away his sins, Hamilton grasped his hand, rolled his eyes
heavenward, and exclaimed with fervor, “I have a tender reliance on the mercy
of the Almighty, through the merits of the Lord Jesus Christ.””
In drawing on his own late blooming faith Alexander Hamilton
was able to also bring spiritual care to his wife in his dying moments. To comfort her, Hamilton kept intoning the one refrain he knew
would soothe her troubled spirit above all others: “Remember, my Eliza, you are
a Christian”
THE DUEL
Alexander Hamilton did not live to repudiate dueling. He died as a casualty of the ritual on July 11, 1804. He was 49 years old; the only prominent founding father not to make it into his elderly years. He is buried in the churchyard of Trinity Church, in the heart of the Wall Street district that owes its existence to the far-sighted economic ideas of the first Secretary of the Treasury of the United States.
For
years Trinity Church was a tourism curiosity due to its fictional role in the
movie National Treasure. But with the
Miranda’s musical, Trinity Church has a whole new status as a pilgrimage
destination. I visited Hamilton’s grave
on a trip to a conference in New York.
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| Trinity Church - Unfortunately when I visited the Hamilton grave area was under renovation |
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| Alexander Hamilton with Eliza's crypt in the foreground |
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| Note that the tombstone indicates Alexander Hamilton died when he was 47, most modern historians place it at 49, due to recent research into his early life. |
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