Hamilton: An American Paradox
Phillip W. Magness’ excerpt Alexander Hamilton As Immigrant: Musical Mythology Meets Federalist Reality opened a new view to me on who Alexander Hamilton really was versus the rose-colored depiction that Lin-Manuel Miranda paints for us in his Hamilton: An American Musical. Throughout Magness’ review, he talks of how the stage Alexander Hamilton is one that is entirely inaccurate, specifically Hamilton’s views on immigration and how it was deeply controversial due to the fact Hamilton himself was an immigrant from the Caribbean island of Nevis (however, due to the fact that Nevis was a part of the British Empire, he technically did not immigrate and instead was an internal migrant).
Prior to reading, my knowledge on Hamilton and who he was as a person and where he stood on politics was limited entirely to that of what Miranda portrayed and what I read about in the historical-fiction novels about his wife, Elizabeth Schuyler-Hamilton. I knew that the perceptions we are taught of the American Founding Fathers is one that is entirely incorrect, and that American history educators tend to put the Founders on an unwarranted pedestal. However, I was unaware of just how warped the teachings of the Founding Fathers is until I read through Magness’ article.
As an avid Hamilton fan and one who has seen the musical several times and owns several different bootlegs, I had never truly questioned Lin-Manuel Miranda’s execution of the first Treasury Secretary. In his introduction, Phillip W. Magness wastes no time in criticizing Miranda’s portrayal and making Hamilton’s immigration status a prominent issue throughout the musical and a recurring barrier in Hamilton’s ability to succeed in American politics. Magness states, “the resulting production is a shockingly rose-colored depiction of Hamilton’s immigrant identity that politely and carelessly overlooks several uglier dimensions of Hamilton’s views on nationality and birth status” (498). This line was the first indication to me that Magness would not be writing another story that praises Miranda’s genius nor would it be another article that highlights all of the good that Hamilton did for our country while conveniently ignoring the controversial ideals he held and mistakes he made that did not involve Maria Reynolds.
To his first section, Magness points out how Miranda utilizes the immigration status of Alexander Hamilton to be a separating point of him from the rest of the characters in the musical (save for Marquis de Lafayette). Despite Hamilton techncially being an internal migrant due to the fact he sailed from one part of the British Empire to another, Miranda capitalizes on Hamilton’s immigration and paints a picture that his enemies considered his status to be that of a black mark on him, and often resorts to having Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Aaron Burr call Hamilton nothing more than “immigrant” (see, “The Room Where It Happens” in Act II). This gives the viewer the idea that Hamilton’s stance on immigration would be one of more pro-immigration due to the fact he is ostracized for not being born on mainland America.
However, Magness reveals that this portrayal of Hamilton’s immigration status and the scrutiny that he receives from his peers is, in fact, historically inaccurate. Instead of wanting to open America to people from all over, Hamilton was one of the congressional Federalists who passed the Alien and Sedition Acts, which were very strong in its nativist views and took away the rights of immigrants. The views that Hamilton held on immigration were so extreme and controversial that that became one of the true reasons as to why many of the Democratic-Republicans hated him and his Federalist party. On page 500, Magness brings up a quote by Thomas Jefferson in which he asks a loaded question of, “Shall oppressed humanity find no asylum on this globe?”. The irony of this is that Magness follows Jefferson’s quote with a long opinion by Hamilton on why the admission of foreigners into the United States would threaten the republic, which is the exact opposite stance that Lin-Manuel Miranda has his version of Hamilton take in his play.
In erasing a vital part of Hamilton’s political beliefs and instead creating him to seem as if he was the Perfect American, I wonder what Lin-Manuel Miranda’s logic behind this was. In the workshop version of George Washington’s “One Last Ride” (renamed and edited to be “One Last Time”), Miranda had a small scene in which Washington and Hamilton march to western Pennsylvania in order to put an end to the rebels, but not much else was alluded to what had been a pivotal point in Hamilton’s career in politics as it created an animoistic relationship between him and congressman William Findley who was another immigrant that came to the United States from another section of the British Empire.
And in erasing Hamilton’s true views on immigration, it leaves viewers and fans of Hamilton to have an extremely warped view of the original Treasury Secretary. Magness even states that because of this, it will force scholars who specialize in the Revolutionary War/New American era to have to correct this warped view of Hamilton for decades to come (498). And this statement is something that makes me concerned for the future generations due to how sugar-coated our history teachings already are.
In one of my courses at Drexel, we were tasked with leaving comments on a discussion board two times a week. Through this, I’ve found that many of my peers have a similar issue with the teaching of American history. Anything that Americans have done wrong has always been presented in a very rose-colored way (ie. the Native Americans relationship with English colonists) and it comes off as a huge surprise when it is revealed that the relationship was much more animostic than what was originally taught. I believe that in the future, educators are going to have a difficult time getting their students to understand that Hamilton was not at all a class-act American Dream guy but instead a walking paradox who held heavily anti-foreigner views.
The wash out of Hamilton’s true views in favor of making him seem more agreeable and likable in Miranda’s Hamilton makes me like the musical much less. While I still think that the lyrics, motifs, and overall execution of using New America to represent Old America is incredibly genius, it does greatly disturb me to know that none of what Miranda writes for Hamilton’s character is true. In his final scene, Hamilton raps of how American was “a great unfinished symphony, a place where even orphan immigrants could leave their fingerprints and rise up”, which heavily implies that he is optimistic of the future of America as a melting pot. Magness reveals that this is entirely false, as in his final years Hamilton was truly pessimistic in his outlook on the United States and immigration. He wanted to block the repeal of the Naturalization Act and he had “deep anxieties about an immigrant boom” under President Thomas Jefferson’s administration.
The purpose of Magness’ article does not escape me, as it is evidence he wants to bring attention to the truly not good person Alexander Hamilton was in his life as opposed to the tenacious and open-minded character that Lin-Manuel Miranda writes for him. While the overall article does disappoint me due to the fact that I was somewhat relieved and excited that there was a Founding Father who was not an awful person, I have to admit that the revelation that Hamilton falls short of that does little to surprise me. Even the best of men and best of the founders had drawbacks at the end of the day, but not all of them were able to have their character completely rewritten.
References
Magness, Phillip W. “Alexander Hamilton as Immigrant: Musical Mythology Meets Federalist Reality.” The Independent Review, 4th ed., vol. 21, Independent Institute, 2017, pp. 497–508.
Hamilton: An American Musical. By Lin-Manuel Miranda, directed by Thomas Kail, 2016, Richard Rodgers Theatre, New York, NY. Performance.
