Yesterday I took a day trip to NYC because my Mom got tickets to see the ridiculously good Broadway show Hamilton.
It’s a hip-hop themed musical written by Lin-Manuel Miranda (who just won a genius grant by the way) that tells the story of our founding fathers. It was incredibly inspiring to see how Miranda took what he knew (rapping, music, diversity) and used that to tell Alexander Hamilton’s story in an innovative way.
A reoccurring theme of the show was Alexander Hamilton’s abilities as a writer. Even though he was an “orphaned immigrant,” he rose to become George Washington’s right-hand man because he was a brilliant writer.
The play was especially well-timed since Alexander Hamilton is about to lose his position on the US $10 dollar bill, to be replaced by a woman.
Alexander Hamilton Was a Great Writer
He was a threat because he could write.
He had influence because he could write.
I loved that. That's why I must share with you what I learned about writing from Hamilton (i.e., Hamilton the person from watching the Hamilton musical).
1. Be Prolific
Alexander Hamilton wrote “like he was running out of time” (an oft-repeated lyric from the musical).
Of the eighty-five installments of the Federalist Papers (arguing for ratification of the Constitution), Hamilton wrote fifty-one. As George Washington’s chief staff aide, he wrote letters to Congress, governors and generals. He drafted orders. And, if the musical is accurate, he even wrote Washington’s speech explaining why he wouldn’t run for a third term as president.
Hamilton wrote all the time, which made him good at it. Because he was a good writer, Hamilton wrote all the time. His talent and passion for writing fed off one another.
2. Write with Conviction
Hamilton had strong beliefs and he wasn’t afraid to express them—even if they yielded him powerful enemies.
In addition to promoting the Constitution, he advocated for the establishment of a national bank and other policies of a strong central government. He was even anti-slavery.
His strong principles often led to fierce debates with Thomas Jefferson (or, more specifically, rap battles if we’re going with the musical).
Hamilton’s commitment to his beliefs was in stark contrast to Aaron Burr, who was his foil in the show. What was Burr’s advice to Hamilton? “Talk less, smile more” and don’t “let them know what you’re against or what you’re for.”
Hamilton’s response was to endorse Thomas Jefferson, who disagreed with him on almost everything, for the presidency in 1800 over Burr—because at least Jefferson, unlike Burr, had principles and beliefs.
3. Think About Your Legacy
As a writer, Hamilton had the unique opportunity to tell his own story. He recorded his thoughts and ideas in letters, essays and journal entries, which enabled him to have a say in his legacy. This was particularly true of his era, when primary sources were more difficult to get a hold of.
The musical shows that Hamilton was extremely conscious of his legacy and the power his own words could play in shaping it. For example, when suspicious payments from Hamilton to a man named James Reynolds emerged, rumors began to swirl that he was embezzling money from the government. In reality, he was being blackmailed for sleeping with Reynolds’ wife.
In order to preserve his (professional) reputation, Hamilton wrote a pamphlet discussing the details of the affair and subsequent payments in detail. Unfaithful to his wife? Yes. Unfaithful to his country? No.
Do you still think Hamilton should be replaced on the ten-dollar bill? Who should be replaced instead?
PRACTICE
Take fifteen minutes to write something you hope will be a part of your legacy. Share in the comments section!
Interesting article, and no he should not be replaced.
Thanks Monica! This is really interesting and yes, we should all write more like him. And no, I don’t think he should be replaced on the bill
No, I don’t think Hamilton should be replaced. Andrew Jackson, on the other hand, very much so…
Agree! Let’s keep Hamilton, born in Montserrat, if I remember correctly!
Agreed! Everyone always says Andrew Jackson lol.
Loved this! I’ll have to see the musical now. 🙂
Seriously! It’s worth it!
I love the Hamilton Musical! The lyrics and the way it’s written is amazing! But if anyone should be replaced it’s Andrew Jackson. Alexander stands for more than Jackson ever did!
Agree with everything in this comment.
The fact that Hamilton thwarted a blackmailer by writing a pamphlet, no matter how salacious the subject was, I vote we put him on the face of a higher currency! 😉
Hahaha! He paid the blackmailer for a while. He just got worried that when people found out they would think he was embezzling money- and that’s where he drew the line!
love the line “like he was running out of time” very inspiring. and I love that Hamilton used the power of words to get himself out of a bad situation, the blackmailing. thanks Monica
A line from the musical! There were many inspiring ones. 🙂
We expect so much from those in leadership, and too often insist they be flawless – something we don’t require of ourselves. I’m not defending Hamilton’s adultery, but these knee jerk reactions to follow the politically correct agenda (even centuries later) leave me weary. The only person Hamilton was accountable to was his wife. Would this even be an issue if Hamilton hadn’t authored the pamphlet to make sure he wasn’t seen as a traitor to his country? The bureaucratic and social hypocrisy is suffocating me! LOL!
Hamilton should not be replaced simply because he, like all of us, are flawed. We make mistakes. Mistakes are a learning process. As I had been told a while ago, we have two lives. The life that we learn with and the life that we live with after that. Hamilton legacy will live on just as his name. KEN
“… he, like all of us, are flawed. We make mistakes.”
No statement ever made by anyone holds more truth than does that. Unfortunately, our news media and our own opinions seldom take that fact into any consideration whatsoever.
I know this is not the forum for a political or for a “the spirit is strong but…” discussion, but your words, and the thought behind them, really struck a chord within me.
At our very cores of existence, we all *are* flawed. Every single person everywhere should contemplate that fundamental truth every day immediately upon waking.
Thanks for expressing it!
Molly, thank you so much. I’m so glad. I have discovered that if you are a leader, you CANNOT and WILL NOT be able to please everybody.
I believe that all of us are aware of this, but we are human and if we could do one tiny little thing that the majority appreciates, then we start believing that we could reach everybody. That’s just being human. KEN
When it comes to pleasing others, Abraham Lincoln said it best. I know from nearly 30 years spent in restaurant management how, despite my best efforts, a certain percentage of people are never happy. Still, the desire to achieve that impossible goal, even knowing full well that I could not, kept me going as well as learning how to improve myself.
Having made the decision to start writing seriously, I am shocked to learn just how cynical I have become. I have learned also how debilitating such a discovery can be as I have been unable to write anything that isn’t angry or caustic or sarcastic in over a month.
Despite my cynicism, I do believe in the timing of certain events during the course of our lives. I believe those events will not and cannot occur until the precise moment we’re ready to appreciate them.
With that in mind, I believe that is why your statement made such an impact on me. I “just happened” to read your comments right at the time I was most prepared to recognize the point I needed to see.
Like everyone, I *am* flawed. I make mistakes, just like everyone else. I shouldn’t beat myself up over it. What I can & should & will do is take a step back and figure out how to make my cynicism work for me.
Again, I offer my thanks for your statements. They literally woke me up!
Jack (aka Molly_dog)
Now I know how that student felt when I gave him one of my own quotes while teaching as a Substitute. I told him that, “Education is Forever!” You mentioned that he wrote all the time. And, to be a good writer, you must do the same…..awwwww, man……!
To replace or not to . . . If change is the only constant in life, why not? However, if we value our history as Americans, why should we? Hamilton was an exceptional writer: he wrote all the time and wrote “like he was running out of time . . .” He was a writer, and I am an aspiring writer; so I stand with him. Hamilton remains on the ten-dollar bill.
Monica, I LOVE this post!! I am going to share it on my own blog for writers, http://www.BulletproofWriting.com. Not only is the information you share invaluable for writers, your ability to take an event in your life and turn it into an amazing post is a whole lesson in itself. Can’t wait to read your novel.
Cheers, Deena
Aww, thanks! The lesson is that you can find inspiration anywhere! 🙂
It’s difficult for me to answer this question because I’m not an American citizen. However, I think Hamilton is too famous to be replaced. If he’s on the ten-dollar bill, he should stay there.
Why replace such a patriot and founding Father of this country. Continue to honor him.
Great article, Monica.
Hamilton swindled Revolutionary War veterans and poor farmers by arranging for them to be paid money the government owed them in worthless scrip no one wanted – then he and friends bought the scrip from them for pennies on the dollar, and he turned around and arranged for the government to then honor it at full value. He was a sociopath – like Jackson, he should never have been on our currency in the first place.
Jim, that is a very strong conviction about a man who helped the United States out of debt and created a financially strong government. You need to research and dedicate yourself a little more before you write this about Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton himself was a Revolutionary War veteran, and his entire life he respected and worked in the interest of his country and their veterans. He also did not swindle ‘poor farmers’ as you say it. You forget these ‘poor farmers’ were slave holders and the actual ‘poor farmers’ were the slaves. Hamilton fought for slave rights his entire life. He was born in Nevis, and had seen the atrocities of slave trade and had resolved never to advocate this horror. He wrote essays against slavery when he was in the Revolutionary war, and was part of several societies which advocated against the abomination that was slavery. To compare him to Jackson is awful. Jackson was a genocidal sociopath, and it is appalling that you say Hamilton is a ‘sociopath- like Jackson’. Moreover, the payment of money you describe is equality (and fair taxation); these ‘poor farmers’ were Virginian slave owners, who threatened to secede from the north because they were too greedy for their own slave-produced money and did not want to pay equally for the debts of the Revolutionary war. Jefferson, Madison, and other Southern democratic-republicans (AKA Virginians ;)) are the basis for the slander against Hamilton’s debt plans, which worked in the interest of the nation. This equal taxation felt unfair to the wealthy elite Virginians. He was a voice against slavery and Virginian elitism, and helped our nation financially more than you can clearly understand. There is nobody else I would want on the 10 dollar bill. However, Jackson can certainly go.
P.S. Who are these ‘friends’?
Actually, the poor farmers were largely poor back-country New Englanders. He did exactly what I wrote he did – read “American Nations.” Hamilton was an advocate for powerful centralized government by aristocrats and argued against the Bill of Rights. He did serve in the Revolutionary War, but afterward hiis financial maneuverings bankrupted a lot of Revolutionary War veterans (typically enlisted soldiers, not officers like himself), as well as other poor rural people (he had a hand in the discriminatory taxation of the whiskey poor rural people tended to use as currency, too, which also directly benefited him financially. He had a serious problem with conflicts of interest, although he seemed to see it as his prerogative.) Hamilton was not a friend of common people or of the separation of powers – he’d fit right in as a member of Trump’s cabinet, and if he were alive today would have been more likely to be standing beside Mike Pence than on that stage.
Hi Jim Finley, thanks for responding.
‘Actually, the poor farmers were largely back-country New Englanders’
Hamilton, a man who had a firm stance opposing slavery, aimed at the slave holding farmers in Virginia. He advocated state debt absolvement, and thus taxation would be needed. The only people opposing this were the slave holders, who wanted their wealth to be held by themselves and only themselves. Hamilton never aimed at these poor back country New Englanders, who he frequently supported. He was part of the manumission society. He aimed at the dismantaling of the aristocracy that was the Virginians.
“Hamilton was an advocate for powerful centralized government by aristocrats and argued against the Bill of Rights.”
Hamilton was very opposed to Aristrocrats. Aristocrats were the reason of his horrible childhood and his struggle for a life among the privileged. He wanted a powerful centralized government, to keep in check the Virginians and democratic-republicans. He argued against the bill of rights for several reasons which are quite rational. One was that all that was not forbidden in the Bill of rights wad permitted. Another was that the Bill of Rights is deeply flawed and can be easily misinterpreted. Here is a quote from him;
“For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do? Why, for instance, should it be said, that the liberty of the press shall not be restrained, when no power is given by which restrictions may be imposed? I will not contend that such a provision would confer a regulating power; but it is evident that it would furnish, to men disposed to usurp, a plausible pretence for claiming that power.”(Federalist 84)
“Hamilton was not a friend of common people or the separation of powers…”
Hamilton was a member of many societies advocating the common people. His humble beginnings always motivated him, and his heart always lay with those who came from origins alike to his. During his affair with Maria Reynolds, he was reminded of his own mother, who was a desperate woman trying to support her illigitimate child. He felt like he needed to protect her, and supported her even though it was the wrong thing to do. What separation of powers do you speak of? If you mean Britain from America, he was extremely opposed to British suppremacy. If you mean France from America, he was hit in the head with a stone in New York for supporting Jay’s treaty. If you mean rich to poor within America, he advocated equal taxation and equal state debts, and the abolition of slavery.
I actually started laughing out loud when I saw he would be seen along side Trump. If you mean strangling him, then yeah. Here are several reasons:
1) Hamilton hated having connections with foreign powers. He would oppose Russia vehemently. Foreign powers were the enemy to him.
2) He opposed agriculturally centralized power. Farmers were not the supreme power in his mind.
3) More fundamentally, he was most likely bisexual. I could not imagine him standing happily next to Pence.
4) Could you ever imagine someone so eloquent supporting Trump?
5) The wall. Why would Hamilton ever want to stop immigration when he himself was an immigrant.
6) His whole working life he helped the US out of debt. He would love to see how much Obama got the US out of debt. He would view Trump as an incoming crisis.
Sorry for the spelling errors, I havent had coffee today.
I’ll be happy to argue against the othet points you brought up but Im afraid that sooner or later I will go beyond my word limit for comment…
Furthermore, the Bank of the United states that was set up by Hamilton passed tariffs to help manufacturers. And the whiskey tax was instituted to provide money to pay back the bondholders who held the IOU’s. The tax was not a good idea, and Hamilton should not have done it. But in his shoes, could you have done better?
I don’t have a huge opinion about whether he should be replaced. I think that if we knew the true story of any famous figure, there would be people on both sides of the fence about whether to honor that person.
But I loved your encouragement about writing! This was awesome!
Well, Hamilton should be acknowledged on the $10 because he established the uniform US currency, and our first national bank. Whereas Jackson hated paper money, fought for a gold-standard currency (which would have been ridiculous) and hated banks in general. Also if we really wanted to acknowledge women, $20 bills are much more commonly used and it would make a much larger statement for gender equality to replace Jackson on the $20.
I honestly love the Hamilton musical, but on the other hand, he did plan a genocide against Native Americans. He was a terrible person irl but I think andrew jackson should be replaced instead
I feel like if Hamilton got replaced it would make some people mad because he was one of our founding fathers this woman is not who would know her? for what? he was the first man to be the United States Secretary of the Treasury I agree with Jimmy Dav and the others what would the younger generations won’t even know this amazing man he was George Washington’s right hand man and I don’t even think everyone will even know this woman what did she do? that would make her greater then Hamilton? he did so many things she didn’t
Hamilton isn’t being removed from the 10 dollar bill nor replaced! One side of the bill will have woman who were instrumental in the acquisition of woman’s rights. Hamilton will remain on the front of the note. (https://modernmoney.treasury.gov/)