This book is a collection of articles on the Broadway play Hamilton with what historians say about the play. I always take historical entertainment skeptically always assuming liberties are taken with all of the facts. I will probably never see the play so I don't have a dog in this discussion. Suffice it to say that most of the play seems to be historically correct, but history is always a matter of interpretation, and Alexander Hamilton is certainly an historical figure who needs interpretation. Hamilton is a Broadway musical, not a work of history, like the movie Lincoln, which is not to say the history is not right, but as with such entertainment details and nuances and historically balanced perspectives have to be sacrificed. The play is one entertainer's point-of-view.
Joanne Freeman is the editor of Library of America's Hamilton collection of writings.
-In the play we get a sense of Hamilton's modern, forward-thinking proposals as opposed to the play's backward thinking world of slave-holding Thomas Jefferson.
-But we don't see the passions and ideals behind Hamilton's policies.
-We don't see his desperate desire to strengthen the national government---to an extreme degree.
-We don't learn of his disposition to seek military solutions to political problems.
-We don't see his deep distrust of the masses and democracy.
-Until his dying day, Hamilton believed that the American republic was bound to fail.
Hamilton feared the democratic multitude. Wasn't he right to do so? Wouldn't he be appalled by Trump? Surely.
The instabilities of the populace were bound to lead to anarchy and ruin. Witness what happened with the French Revolution. The real disease was DEMOCRACY.
Hence, Hamilton's predilection for military solutions. Always cited is the so-called Whiskey Rebellion (which quickly fizzled out).
Hamilton's distrust of democracy was heartfelt. He fretted about the "unthinking populace." He was a conservative revolutionary. He believed in the stability of law and order above all.
Debt assumption would reinforce the federal government authority and power. A brokered deal with Madison and Jefferson pulled assumption thru.
Hamilton's defense of his national bank to President Washington began the idea of the broad interpretation of the Constitution ensuring the power of the national government.
Hamilton said in 1803 that in order to have a chance to survive republican government needed as much energetic government as republican theory would allow. (Makes sense)
His continued praise for the government of Great Britain worked for his reputation as a monarchist.
His biggest backers WERE conservative money-men eventually known as federalists.
The Republicans had their own agrarian, small-government vision of the country. Heartfelt like Hamilton, but not popular anymore. Federalists fought to empower the new national government and the first Republicans fought to limit it.
"Hamilton reduces this conflict to a battle between past and present, depicting Hamilton as a forward-looking avatar of the future who envisioned a powerful, industrialized America and did his best to push the nation toward that goal as opposed to a backward-looking agrarian, slave-supporting Jefferson. There is some truth in this telling. Over time, the United States followed in the early modern British Empire's footsteps, becoming a world power economically, militarily, and politically, as the Federalists had hoped. And by twenty-first century standards, Jefferson's yeoman-farmer centric vision of the United States seems premodern." P. 50
I learned from this book how controversial Hamilton has been throughout history. I had no idea. Too bad he has been largely superseded by Jefferson at least until recent years.
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