willamilton

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Is George Washington a god? Learn more about the historical man whose flaws never appear in Hamilton. 

[willamilton]

Classical American Ingenuity

These days, everyone is worried about how corrupt and slow our democracy is. Financial interests have a stake in all of our laws, using donations to sway lawmakers to one side or the other. Meanwhile, wide-scale reforms for anything from taxes to health care is an arduous process that takes years. There is simply no way to make easy change! It’s in times like these when we’re forced to look back to our history to see what our amazing, ingenious founders would do.

Take abolition as an example. In the north, it was pretty clear from the founding of the country forward that slavery was wrong. Even Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, the revolution’s most famous slave owners expressed that slavery was wrong on several occasions. So, of course, the nation got right to work to bring down the systems of slavery throughout the colonies. In New York, there were laws against slavery as early as 1799. As Rael writes, “The law legally emancipated all people of African descent born into slavery after July 4, 1799…” (Rael 132) What a patriotic day to free people! Of course, nobody could get a bill like that through the senate without trading a few favors away. So, Rael writes on, “.. but liberated no one immediately. Rather, it mandated that women until the age of twenty-five and men until the age of twenty-eight would become bound “servants” of those who had previously owned them. Excepting instances of individual manumission, 1824 was thus the earliest that blacks covered by the law could be come legally free.” (Rael 132) Look! They ended slavery! Congratulate the founders on their forward-thinking and basic human decency. You can definitely see why so many early politicians found themselves re-elected frequently. They got stuff done! Not like today.

Sure, some of the traded favors might have increased the length of one of the most terrible institutions in world history and put a few more dollars in the pockets of the people responsible for it, but at least they got it in writing early! If we re-apply this to today and say that health care reform started in 2010 with the ACA, we can turn this into a math problem. “Slavery Reform” as I’ll call it, started in 1799. As we know, 1865 saw the end of the Civil War and slavery through the 13th amendment. Which means, it only took 66 years to (kind of/not really) solve the problem, once somebody started working on it! By that logic, if health care gets sorted out by the year 2076, 66 years after reform started, we can be proud enough to call ourselves as productive and fantastic as the founders.

Classical American Ingenuity

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I suppose you could say that Black Americans were lucky to be alive during the Revolutionary War—at least there was the possibility, the idea of freedom. For the first time since they came to the continent of North America, they began to believe that one side or the other would offer them freedom when the end of the war came. So off they rushed, potentially to their death, because death in the fight for freedom for their people was better than dying in the fields, surrendering to the idea that slavery was the inevitable end. Some of them got their first paying jobs, their first glimpse of freedom. Finally, the transatlantic slave-trade was ended. The end was not near, but for those who did not know that, they were able to enjoy at least the semblance of freedom in their lifetime.

[willamilton]

A Northern Collab

When we think of slavery and its legacy in relation to the American Revolution, the history usually remains unresolved. How could a revolutionary movement based on universal equality coexist with the practice of slavery? While the early Americans who faced these circumstances tried to put off such discussion, it’s important to recognize the magnitude of rectifying human enslavement with a newborn nation with varying conceptions of liberty. It could not be an issue undertaken on a small scale nor would its results be yielded immediately. In the national move toward emancipation, Americans faced the greatest ideological struggle of their time.

                What is often overwritten in the complex history of Revolutionary and post-Revolutionary America is the gradual and multi-facetted activism that eroded slavery. When we think of the period of slavery between the Revolution and the Civil War, it tends to be simplified down to slavery-infested southern states and burgeoning northern states encouraging of free blacks. The Hodges and Rael readings shed light on the realities of slavery and forced labor that faced blacks in northern cities like New York, and how the struggle for freedom was far from over at the outset of the War for Independence and afterwards. On behalf of the powerless slaves in slavery-strong New York, abolitionist organizations like the New York Manumission Society took up the cause of lobbying and pursuing the release of slaves through legal means. This was the cause of wealthy, white, self-righteous men who believed themselves to be able to see slaves above the form of property they were commonly regarded as. Accordingly, the empathetic authenticity of the cause is questioned, but that doesn’t discount the fact that the position and power of these men greatly contributed to formal and codified emancipation.

                Equally as important were the main actors of slavery itself, African Americans both free and black. The opportunist actions of early American blacks were crucial to undermining the legitimacy of the institution, building their own sense and determination for freedom, and strengthening a communal and ethnic solidarity that would provide them social capital. With the influx of runaway slaves into the British army and increase in black social organizations (churches, literary clubs, mutual aid societies, etc.), African Americans refuted their presupposed inferiority and capacity for civil engagement, and thus empowered themselves to pursue the greater liberties that American claimed to offer. After being dropped into societies in which they held no financial footing or social resources, the increasingly numerous blacks in cities like New York began making their long case for complete enfranchisement.

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How lucky we are?

It is interesting to read the Hodges and Rael pieces in the light of Annette Gordon-Reed and Peter Onuf’s lecture about Jefferson, with an emphasis on his relationship with slavery. Though Jefferson recognized the moral wrong of slavery, and believed the issue would be solved, he did not see peaceful cohabitation between Americans of more than one race. The Hodges and Rael pieces, however, focused on the mixed-race city of New York, when African Americans sought to find a place within the young country’s delicate framework. History is happening in Manhattan… or is it? Though Hodges was prone to painting a rosier picture of African American life during the Founding Era, Rael confirms that for black people, even in Northern states, life was far from rosy. “Emancipation in New York did not signal a fulfilled commitment to universal human liberty. Rather, it confronted black New Yorkers with a future of tightly circumscribed freedom” (114). Though “free,” New York African Americans now had to struggle with low-paying jobs in a wartorn city filled with sneering white “betters.” Indeed, “Black New Yorkers had had reason to greet their liberation with optimism. But the early years of black freedom in New York were not a tale of progressive betterment and expanding liberty. For African Americans, it must have seemed that history moved backward.” (145) You could have done so much more if you only had time Hamilton reads like a story of liberation, yet in this one instance, the absence of black characters is a positive: the liberation embraced by the characters did not carry over to African Americans at the time, and it would be immoral to suggest that it had. As Eliza sings, there was much more that could have been done, not just by Hamilton, but everyone alive in “the greatest city in the world.”

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4.27.17 Ham Blog

Slavery in the US did not disappear after the American Revolution, despite having several thousand enslaved people fight alongside the Patriots. Abolition in the US was set back but also advanced after the American Revolution. The advancement was due to the reconstruction of black lives. Freed enslaved people renamed themselves and rebuilt their families. Additionally, the African Americans in New York experienced a renewal of spiritual black life. (Hodges, 102) They experienced growth in the community outside of the chains of slavery, which was a cultural advancement for black people. Setbacks were due to the continued entrenchment of slavery in the agricultural communities of the US. Whenever a bill came up to challenged the establishment of slavery it would not pass because white slave owners did not want their “livelihood” to be taken away. Black women and men laid claim to ideas of the Revolution but they were barred from ever receiving the freedom that the Revolution promised because white people would not allow immediate change. African Americans were among the voices that demanded liberty from the British pre- Revolution, but once the war was over white people disassociated themselves from black people. In Hodges “Liberty and Constraint” article, he mentioned how when the Sons of Liberty tore down a statue of King George III black men were among the crowd. (Hodges, 95) After the war, however, the laws that gave freedom to enslaved people did not have enslaved people as the focus, but the slave owners. The Gradual Emancipation Law of 1799 was a measure which allowed slave children to be freed if they were born after July 4, 1799, in New York. (Rael, 125) This was a compromise between the abolitionists and the slaveowners. This law began to chip away at the Slavery establishment by allowing children of slaves freedom, but their parents were still owned. On one hand, it's taking away the inheritance of slavery from generation to generation, but on the other hand, people are still enslaved. Each law that passed to liberate enslaved people in New York was designed to be the least burdensome to the slaveowners. The equality that was talked about in the Revolution seemed to be only reserved for white Americans after the war.d

The readings brought up this question involving whether Hamilton makes race problems more palpable for white audiences? This question came from the understanding that a lot of the laws working towards emancipation after the American Revolution was done to make it as easy as possible for the people in power to feel like their status was not being challenged. This may point to the fact that there is a duality to Hamilton where on one hand it’s showing PoC in power positions, but on the other hand, the importance of white characters in history is not compromised. Is Hamilton also an advancement and setback to the race issue in America?

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Pardon the Playwright Persecute the Politician

Lin Manuel-Miranda’s presentation of Alexander Hamilton, characterizes the young politician as steadfast, verbose and brilliant. While Hamilton is not presented without fault, he is presented in an admirable light that inflates his character for the sake of entertainment value. For example, even though Hamilton’s affair is blatantly exposed in the show, the song The Reynolds Pamphlet does little to incite distaste for the character. The line that gets repeated over and over “Hey! At least he was honest with our money!” by Maddison and Jefferson and then repeated by Hamilton paints him as an honorable man in the face of dishonor. Hamilton is a man susceptible to the wiles of damsels in distress. He tries to be virtuous but fails. With Eliza’s forgiveness, he is redeemed in the audience’s eyes and free to resume the heroic status as a man with insatiable desire to establish a country that benefits industrious underdogs like himself. The affair is included more as a humanizing drama that ultimately does little to tarnish his reputation.

  While another way to present the affair could be that Hamilton preyed on the plight of Maria Reynolds. After her abusive husband leaves her destitute she seeks out the financial aid of Alexander Hamilton who requests to deliver the money to her home. Given the limited options for income of women in the 1700s it is not unreasonable to assume she may have engaged in an affair with Hamilton out of desperation and manipulation from Alexander Hamilton. (Foster) Of course, such a presentation of the affair vilifies Hamilton too much. In the scope of the play, it would be hard to forgive him and continue the story with compelling dramatic value.

  As elaborated upon by Thomas Foster in his book Sex and the Founding Fathers Miranda is not alone in the urge to draw upon the vein of founder’s chic. Brushing contradictions of ideals under the rug by lauding the Founding Fathers as untouchable beacons of morality and benevolence, and explaining their morally questionable acts only as symptoms of their society. “Modern Americans surprised to learn of Hamilton’s affair may be reacting to national rhetoric that memorializes the Founding Father’s as men of unusual virtue and morality—paragons in public and private affairs… Conservative commentators also stroke this idealized image by calling on Americans to remember and return to the morality of the Founding generation.” (Foster) Lin Manuel-Miranda doesn’t present an unflawed group of men, but he gives Alexander Hamilton more credit than he is owed and inadvertently spins a tale of traditional justification of American idealism. Perhaps one reason the Rockefeller foundation sent 20,000 public school students to see the play Hamilton was to reinstate the conservative age-old convenient American fiction of meritocracy and a “natural” dispersion of wealth.

    Still, Lin Manuel-Miranda is not exclusively responsible for telling American history. He views the play as vehicle of inspiration towards a deeper more inclusive understanding “That’s where my job ends and your job begins because I think a lot of kids are going to get excited about Hamilton’s personal narrative and they’re going to research on their own to find out about those narratives that aren’t represented in the play.” (Miranda) He sees his relationship towards the era as one that incites the empathy of an audience, and to that end he succeeded beautifully. It is our personal duty to fill in the cracks. The question stands though, did Miranda present too lovable a narrative of Alexander Hamilton such that investigations of his short comings will be immediately dismissed?

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What about Benjamin Franklin?

Ben Franklin with a key and a kite, inventor of bifocals, face on the one-hundred-dollar bill. A founding father—A founding father? Maybe it’s just me… maybe I just didn’t pay attention in middle school United States history… but nothing I’ve ever heard about Benjamin Franklin has illustrated him as a founding father. His only mention in Hamilton is the first line of this post. Is he just considered a founding father because he signed the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence?

            The most highlighted part of Benjamin Franklin you find online, aside from the key and the kite thing, is the fact that he was the first Postmaster General. I don’t even know what the Postmaster General does, and in case you were wondering, neither does Wikipedia; but it’s the second highest paid position in the United States government—second only to the president. Is this what makes him a founding father? He once held the position that makes the second most money in the US government?

            A friend told me he’s considered a founding father because he set up a lot of the foundation of the government, like things behind the scenes that really make up our government that civilians don’t know much about.

I feel like Benjamin Franklin might be more of a mystery than Alexander Hamilton ever was to me. I knew Hamilton was the first Secretary of the Treasury, and at least I know what that job probably entails. Can I get a musical explaining what Benjamin Franklin did for the country? It’s not that I don’t believe he was a founding father, I just don’t understand why.

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The world was wide enough

Near the end, Alexander Hamilton threw away his shot. During the duel with Aaron Burr, Hamilton points his gun to the sky, while Burr fires his gun at Hamilton. Burr did not throw away his shot, literally, but Hamilton did. In the rest of this blog post, I am going to talk about how this duel did not need to happen and how Burr and Hamilton both threw away their shot.

The duel between Hamilton and Burr could have been stopped before it had even started. Communication back then was not like how it is now, where you can text, facebook, tweet, snapchat, etc, and get a response right away. The letters that Burr and Hamilton sent to each other took a while to get to each other. During that time, one of them could have decided that dueling over what Hamilton said was ridiculous, but they did not. Instead, Burr and Hamilton duel! This makes no sense! Both of them could have let this go, but they did not, and  Hamilton died before he could see the effects of his policies. As Burr says at the end of the play, “the world was wide enough for the both of us.” The world was wide enough for the both of them, but neither of them at that moment were able to recognize that the world was wide enough for the both of them.

In this way, Burr and Hamilton both threw away their shot. Burr threw away his shot by shooting Hamilton and not realizing that Hamilton and he could have resolved the problem and worked together. Hamilton threw away his shot by pointing his gun at the sky instead of shooting at Burr. He literally threw away his shot by shooting his gun in the air. Both men threw away their shot by not realizing that the world was big enough for both the men to exist. Maybe Hamilton was depressed, he had just lost his son to a duel? Maybe Burr was tired of being walked on, and what Hamilton said was the straw that broke the camel's back? Either way, the duel was not necessary.

This duel between the two men could have been stopped before it happened, and both men threw away their chance at living in a world where both of them could exist and express their thoughts. As it is said in the play, the world was wide enough for the both of them, all they had to do was actually talk to each other. They had to talk face to face, not a letter, tone cannot be determined through a letter. All they had to do was talk to each other face to face.

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Changing the World

In Lin’s interview with Joann Freeman and Brian Murphy, one moment that struck me in particular was when Lin said, “I’m not changing the world here.” This struck me, I think, because I don’t agree with him. Lin has changed the way the world thinks about history. Some may say this change is particularly around the revolutionary era but, as Lin mentioned, more and more people are rapping history reports and writing songs to learn things. I find myself wondering how many people throughout history have thought that same thought while being completely wrong. Picture Alexander Graham Bell talking to his wife Mabel on the phone he invented, “I’m not changing the world here.” The Wright brothers telling each other it’s no big deal. Alexander Fleming’s like, “Eww, fungus.” They had to know, but when Harry Coover invented super glue, he spent six years being pissed that it stuck to everything.

Even if he hasn’t changed the world, he certainly changed mine. I’ve bonded with people I never thought I’d befriend over this play; I would never have taken a history class in college if it weren’t for this play. I think everyone who has listened to and enjoyed this play has been more effected by it than LMM gives himself credit for. I don’t think any of us will ever think of the revolutionary era the same way again—or at least not without the Hamilton soundtrack playing in our minds.

In a previous interview with Lin he said something along the lines of “no one actually told Washington and Hamilton that history had its eyes on them.” Could they really have known the everlasting effect they would have on their young country? And would they have acted differently had they known, or not known?

I loved the line about history not necessarily repeating itself, but rhyming. Mark Twain may or may not have actually said that, but he did say that “no occurrence is sole and solitary, but is merely a repetition of a thing which has happened before, and perhaps often.” I see Lin as an example of history rhyming, repeating itself. During his research of Hamilton, Lin sat and wondered how Hamilton wrote like he was running out of time. During my research of Lin, I’ve often wondered the same of him. In the Heights, Bring It On, Hamilton, and even the music for Moana have all been produced, damn near single-handedly by Lin in a shorter amount of time than I have been alive.

How do you write like you’re running out of time?

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What Happened to Hamilton?

Hamilton, the Musical's romanticized treatment of the nation's founders has brought a lot of controversy into the conversation. First off, giving so much love to people like George Washington or Alexander Hamilton, decidedly flawed individuals, serves only to suggest that the founders were somehow wiser or greater than people today. It hides their mistakes and rewrites many unfavorable parts of history. Obviously, in the musical, Hamilton's political views are intentionally re-framed to seem modern and liberal. He is portrayed as less problematic, racist, and conservative than real history would have us believe and very purposefully makes him a protagonist purely because he was an underdog in society. Lin Manuel Miranda manipulates history to serve his play's needs by reviving Hamilton as a character that actually appears to care about the lower classes of society and the marginalized. Historical Hamilton isn't in the play. Of course, it's not all bad. The show's revisionist history does send a modern message about the immigrants that make a difference in America today and every day since the founding of the country, shows feminist values, and at the very least, addresses that slavery is a problem during the revolution. As H.W. Brands puts in in his article, “The Founders got the country off to a good start, but they would have been the first to admit that it was no more than a start. They were acutely aware of the continuing nature of their experiment in self-government, and they expected future generations to accomplish as much as they had. They would have dismissed as ludicrous the notion that theirs was a blessed generation, to which others might never compare. That notion is essentially anti-republican, too, and therefore insults all they struggled to achieve. “ (Brands) The constant praise and hero worship of our founders is harmful to the country but, of course, is remarkably patriotic and profitable for a play. I would argue that we should simply treat Hamilton, the Musical and Historical Alexander Hamilton as different people. After all, Historical Hamilton was absolutely a conservative man with large goals for putting every man, woman, and child in America to work in factories if they didn't have the privilege or the raw talent to progress further towards a better life. He did little to protect slaves in the grand scheme of things and most of his political work ended up being considered deeply flawed in the long run. Shockingly, not everyone is completely satisfied with capitalism. While the play has a base in history and is extremely educational, it is irresponsible to treat it as the truth and unreasonable to expect a Broadway production to keep to history exactly, as the point of plays is primarily to entertain anyway. Hamilton, the Musical should be treated as light history with heavy drama and entertainment value.

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Is it a bad thing if we see America's "founders" as human beings?

The Founding Fathers are almost regarded as demi-god status entities that somehow seem to be incapable of flaw. The readings of today’s class focused on the implications of this perception America possesses and what that means for Americans moving forward. The consensus of the authors was that we should lower our status of the founding fathers in order to better the future of America.

In “That Hamilton Man,” Wallace critiqued a museum’s glorification of Hamilton as the “man who made modern America.” Wallace argued that modernity can not be narrowed down to one person as the cause and that the museum ignored several aspects of Hamilton that would contradict the overall arching theme of the exhibit. Hamilton was not the man that the museum made him out to be. He was eager to join the Revolutionary Army as an inspector general of the army, while in the exhibit he is said to have joined “‘against his own inclination.’” Additionally, Hamilton was against the Bill of Rights, claiming the country needed to be run by “well-bred elites.” The museum does not present these part of Hamilton and does not address how these facts play into the whole “man who made Modern America” status. Overall, Wallace claimed that the museum was too busy glorifying Hamilton and did not spend enough time actually understanding the man.

Yglesias, in his article “How Lin-Manuel Miranda taught liberals to love Alexander Hamilton”, argued that a “historiographical revolution” has started due to this shift in historical celebration from Washington to lesser-known figures like Alexander Hamilton and furthermore, Hamilton revealed what divides modern Democrats. Yglesias listed several works that are now focusing on race-conscious politics or bringing new characters like Barack Obama into a historical American conscious. In summary, historians are breaking past focusing solely on people who made it into power (i.e. the presidency). Yglesias went on to discuss how Hamilton revealed the divides between the Democrat party. The modern Democratic party holds members who believe that “crushing the political power of the rich is the central political cause of out time.” The party is divided among people who want to celebrate Hamiltonian tradition, but also want the financial power of the rich to be decimated. The Democratic party has a class struggle at its door. That is what Hamilton alludes to but never resolves. Overall, the article showed how historiography is changing towards identifying other key characters and that new interpretations of historical events can provide insight into current struggles.

Brand implied this question in “Founders Chic” regarding whether remembering the founding fathers is good or bad for America. Brand asserted that this Founders Chic can be bad for America in the sense that implied that individuals were able to create the country and tie up all loose ends all within a lifetime. The Founding Fathers were smart people, but they were not that full of energy and vitality to create a whole country within a lifetime. By having this perspective of the Founding fathers, the American reality is distorted. We see what the Founders did as unflawed and not susceptible to change. Brand argued that we should be able to change things and not stick to the same rules that a bunch of white dudes created centuries ago. Times have changed and we have to change along with it. Furthermore, the founders were just people and we should not bring them up to this demi-god status.

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Agency of non-gods

What fascinates me about “Founders Chic,” “original intent,” and the lionizing of early American political leaders is how incompatible such phenomena are with the ideals which are attributed to the revolution. Beyond a sense of equality which is corrupted when some historical figures are exalted to god-levels, a Founders Chic ideology is puzzling when considering Patriots whose propaganda eventually centered on the supposed poser King George III. God-given authority to rule? The Patriots scoffed, and planned a government of white men whose merits (and wealth and popularity) would determine their office. A divine wisdom, a natural superiority, an unquestionable dignity? All such kingly qualities were demonized by the Founders of the young America in order to justify independence and revolution.

So why now do we attribute Washington with godly gravitas, or Hamilton with mega-wisdom and wit, or Jefferson with supreme ideological authority? Maybe because it’s easier to assume that revolutionary change can only be achieved by demigods. Just as H.W. Brands notes, “In revering the Founders we undervalue ourselves and sabotage our own efforts to make improvements—necessary improvements—in the republican experiment they began. Our love for the Founders leads us to abandon, and even to betray, the very principles they fought for.” It’s a cop-out to attribute agency and ability only to the glorified dead. We have even more agency and ability than the Founders ever dreamed, especially if “we” includes women, people of color, queer folks, et cetera, et cetera. Yes, Hamilton created a national bank, founded the New York Post, and created the Coast Guard. But in the America which he contributed to, now Puerto Rican sons of immigrants can craft brilliant masterpieces of musical, lyrical, and historical reinterpretations and reinventions of America’s mythologies. If that doesn’t define agency, what does?

Rather than “making giants of the Founders, [wherein] we make pygmies of ourselves; in making saints of them, we make sinners of ourselves,” what if we view ourselves, Founders and peers alike, as “just a guy in the public eye trying to do [our] best for our republic”? Can we grapple with the Founders as equals, and confront their work as reinvent-able? I argue that we can, and we should. Or, we can resort to closing roads like rural Pennsylvanians.

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The Real TJ

As with almost all of the most notable figures in the course fo human history, Thomas Jefferson was a man definitively shaped by his firsthand experiences and the complicated beliefs and convictions that derived from them. Hamilton’s Jefferson is an obtuse simplification of a man who, in reality, found it much more difficult to practice exactly as he preached. In the play, Thomas Jefferson is a partisan representative for Revolutionary era American politics; he comes along in the story just in time to pushback on Washington and Hamilton, then ascend to the presidency. Aside from the brief “Cabinet Battles,” we get less ideology from the character and more personality as a strong-willed dignitary of an entitled (dis)position. Thomas Jefferson was really a principled and “enlightened” member of the Revolutionary intelligentsia of the late eighteenth century that found evidence of the laws of nature within the patriarchal world he resided comfortably in. For all of his philosophizing and novel contact in foreign places, his intellectual and social environments colored his perceptions and thoughts more than anything else, and may be the root of Jeffersonian contradictions.

                Jefferson’s paternalism shines through as the most obvious cause (justification?) for his ideas of “family” and broader social bonds. Evidence first appears in his steadfast faith in the formation and success of republicanism in America. In order to have a fully efficient republic with active citizens, the American people needed to be cultivated into higher forms of civility – through education, equal living standards, and other reforms. If America could foster its people to turn into such model civilians, it would not only benefit individuals but the country as a whole. This intercession of Jefferson on behalf of all Americans was a preview for how he maintained a patriarchal scope when espousing his beliefs about family. Even from within the familial framework, Jefferson does not see the contradiction between his views and his notions of genuine equality because he, as a white male and head of the family, is the sole representative of the family and thus sets the standard for what is considered equal and fair. Jefferson advocates for equality of all, on the basic assumption that the patriarchs of families stand for the family unit as a whole. This extended sense of obligation and duty extends outward from the family to friends and neighbors, fostering Jefferson’s strong affection for community.

                The most glaring blemish on Jefferson’s record, what remains unresolved in reconciling his legacy, is his handling of the slavery issue. Hamilton frames Jefferson as acknowledging the difficulties of slavery, but brushing them aside as impractical issues to deal with. The truth of the matter is that couldn’t have been more succinct a statement of what the actual Jefferson believed and advanced regarding the issue. Despite the most overt contradiction in speaking to his French constituents and seeing the generational consequences of oppressing populations within a nation, he was not compelled to settle the question of slavery’s ethical validity and how that judgement would transcend to the New World. Jefferson, with the experience overseas to learn from another country, the reverence afforded to him at home and abroad, and an exceptional role in Washington’s first cabinet that would extend his political career for decades, was in the greatest possible role (short of Washington) to address slavery and push forward a remedy given the long-term implications that he foresaw. Despite the local pushback he would receive and the doubtless growing pains that would accompany resolving the issue, Jefferson’s words of equality and fraternity will always ring more hollow than he ever intended because of his willful omission.

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Jefferson the Walking Contradiction

Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence. Thomas Jefferson was a founding father. Thomas Jefferson was President of the United States. Thomas Jefferson owned slaves, and that is what sticks with people. How could someone who owns slaves talk about all men are equal. It is a contradiction, and it is being recognized more and more. Lin Manuel Miranda shows how it is a contradiction.

In the first cabinet battle, Hamilton explicitly states this contradiction. When arguing about the country having collective dept, Hamilton shoots down Jefferson. He says, “A civics lesson from a slaver. Hey neighbor, Your debts are paid cuz you don’t pay for labor.” The thing is, it is true! Thomas Jefferson did not pay for labor, he owned slaves. Lin Manuel Miranda directly tells the audience that Jefferson owned slaves, and that it is a contradiction. The audience reacts like most by going,”eeewwww,” because it is a burn on Jefferson that he is a walking contradiction.

There is something to keep in mind though. Even though Jefferson did own slaves and said that all men are created equal, at the time, slaves were not considered people. It was a common mindset of the time. Later slaves would count as 3/5th of a person, but it would be a while before the law and other people saw African Americans as people, and should be treated equally under the law. Often modern thinking prevents us from realizing that at the time, people saw slaves and slavery different than we do today. Yes, Jefferson is a contradiction, but for his time, is he?

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The Righteous Hypocrite

In “The Most Blessed of the Patriarchs,” Gordon-Reed and Onuf waste no time in framing Thomas Jefferson as an individual committed to the success and growth of his home. While representing the United States in Paris, he gained an appreciation for America, sure, but even more so, he realized how much he loved his home in Virginia. Witnessing mass poverty and corrupt governments across Europe in the tyrant King George's England, Spain, and even his favorite destination of France, Jefferson realized what made his own home so special- the freedom and opportunity. In Paris, poverty was all too common and the country itself was on course for a revolution of its own in the coming decades but Jefferson had few memories of such issues back home. It was easy for him to think that as a wealthy white plantation owner in the south, but that was his view anyway. With slaves working his soil even when he was away, Jefferson sought to protect his own view of his state, while ignoring one of the most corrupt institutions known to human history.

As Gordon-Reed and Onuf state, “The Virginia he now envisioned, as he looked westward from Paris, did not have to be reformed. Quite to the contrary, the pure, uncorrupted institutions of the republican New World had to be protected...” (135) That is to say, Jefferson's perception was romanticized and skewed by his personal experiences. That becomes even more clear when the chapter goes on to say, “The French peasantry was condemned to ignorance and misery by the character of a government that denied them equal access to the land and its fruits.” It's funny how he continues to believe that America holds all people to be equal. This, from what I can tell, is one of the earliest examples of American exceptionalism being used by one of our foremost founding fathers. Moreover, it reveals the ignorance of the founding era.

To Jefferson's credit, he wasn't entirely wrong either. There were many hugely corrupt institutions in Europe that America avoided following. One example can be found in Hamilton, the Musical. Returning to America, Jefferson fought tooth and nail to prevent Alexander Hamilton's plans to institutionalize wide-scale factories and businesses that would put women and children to work, completing unskilled labor projects and rapidly ensuring the early industrialization of the nation. It's more difficult to argue with anti-child labor sentiment but again, we are reminded that this sentiment only extended to white children.   

[willamilton]

So often we gauge our own version of America and her history based on how we view our forefathers and mothers.  There is a certain type of pride associated with our founders, a pride that will cause even the most critical citizen to staunchly defend our forefathers’ actions.  This defense even comes when the only argument present is our own conviction, no facts need be present.  The question I will pose is why does it matter how we view our forefathers?  They are dead and their actions and deeds live on mainly in our memories and our history books.  Many of the policies and laws have long since become outdated and most have been updated to reflect our modern times and our modern values.  Yet we idolize them and make them out to be gods among men. Treating them as we treated the gods, before we outgrew them, immortalizing their likenesses in statues, paintings, and monuments.  Why is it that we allow men who have long been dead to take the credit for our achievements as a country? Why do we allow these men to take the fall for problems and issues that they never had an effect on?

That’s what it comes down to in the end, blame.  If we treat the authors of our Constitution, Bill of Rights, of the Federalist Papers, and of the great works of law that shaped our nation like gods we don’t have to hold ourselves truly accountable for the things we fail at and for the questionable things they did.  As soon as these men are made into men and not deities we have to come to terms with all the morally shaky things they did in the name of Freedom.  

Look at Jefferson, before Hamilton he was second only to George Washington, he was the guy who wrote the words “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”  Someone who wrote those inspired and enlightened words must be an unfailingly good person, right? Now that Hamilton has started to paint Jefferson as less than a good guy, questions are coming up, questions that don’t have clear or good answers.  For example: how is it that Jefferson was able to be so hypocritical to write, “All men are created equal” when he owned people as slaves? How is it that he condoned this, as he was a self proclaimed proponent of Freedom?

When we allow the Founders of our country to be humanized it opens them up to all the moral subtitles that we encounter everyday.  The difference is that after deifying these men for so long the shock of them having faults is much more destructive than we might have imagined.