Some thoughts on Hamilton

Chernow’s Alexander Hamilton, chps. 1-3.

The sacred rights of mankind

are not to be rummaged for among old parchments

 or musty records.

They are written as with a sunbeam,

in the whole volume of human nature by the hand of the divinity itself

and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power. (1775, by 20yr old Hamilton, p. 60)

Anna can sing, or rap, every word of Miranda’s Hamilton. While spending a few days with friends at Pine Lake; I found myself, by surprise, coming home with Ron Chernow’s biography Alexander Hamilton from which Lin-Manuel Miranda received his rap musical inspiration. The book is a gift. “Take it home,” our guest said, “it’s only used as a door stopper around here.”  It’s of door stopping girth—750 some pages. So this morning, I went to work on it. Easy for Anna, but a task for ponderous readers like myself. 

The above “hand of divinity itself” quote comes from Hamilton’s earliest essays written while a collegian only a year and a half after his arrival in America (New York), and about a year and a half before the Revolution. We see in young Hamilton what shows up in Jefferson’s declaration that we are “endowed by [our] Creator with certain unalienable Rights…”  These rights come to us by “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God”.

“Nature and Nature’s God” isn’t quite the same as our God of the Gospel with Christmas and Easter, Ascension and Consummation; but, it is nonetheless, notable. It’s the Enlightenment at its best. Doesn’t such human dignity require something more than “old parchments or musty records”? From where do we receive such an enlightened vision of humanity? What happens when such a notion of “Nature’s God” is dismissed? What is left to preserve human value?

There’s another notion of Hamilton and our founders, summed up by Chernow towards the end of chapter three: “The task of government was not to stop selfish striving—a hopeless task—but to harness it for the public good.” That has some Gospel in it. All humans, even though “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights…” remain flawed like Hamilton and Jefferson—like you and me. Meanwhile, what’s the best form of government we can come up with for such flawed yet noble human beings? For such mortals as ourselves, it’s hard to beat the form of government our founders thoughtfully and heroically forged. We do well to be grateful.