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Photography: Alamy
confidence of many friends. His distrust of democracy made matters worse;
the rise of popular politics in America eroded his political power and status.
Towards the end of his life, he could only conclude that ‘this American
world was not made for me’.
We would know far less about that life without Elizabeth Hamilton. After
Hamilton’s death in 1804, she devoted the rest of her days to collecting
his papers, gaining him credit for his work, and finding him a biographer.
She worked for decades to prove Hamilton’s role in drafting President
Washington’s famed Farewell Address. Hamilton’s sons supported her efforts
with fist-clenched belligerence. Egged on by their mother, their pride, and
a bottomless pit of indignation, Hamilton’s two oldest sons, Alexander
and James, routinely leaped to their father’s defence when he was slighted,
leaving a stream of newspaper screeds, abusive letters, pamphlets, books and
lawsuits in their wake.
Hamilton: An American Musical captures much of Hamilton’s tumultuous
and chequered life. It also captures something of America’s tumultuous and
chequered founding. With the benefit of hindsight, it’s easy to forget that
the United States was an experiment in government. Breaking away from
a mighty empire was a daunting, seemingly unachievable task. Creating
a republic that would thrive in a world of monarchies was far from
certain. Lin-Manuel Miranda’s musical masterpiece embodies that spirit.
Experimental and innovative in its own right, it offers audiences a sense of
the urgent contingencies of Hamilton’s world.
‘Hamilton’s rise was remarkable. So was his fall.
The very things that raised him to power destroyed him;
the Shakespearean arc of his life makes for good theatre’
Joanne B Freeman is Professor of History and American Studies at
Yale University, the author of Affairs of Honor: National Politics in the
New Republic and the editor of Alexander Hamilton: Writings and
The Essential Hamilton.