Alexander Hamilton: Difference between revisions
Rescuing 0 sources and tagging 1 as dead. #IABot (v2.0beta9)
m (Mass update links) |
(Rescuing 0 sources and tagging 1 as dead. #IABot (v2.0beta9)) |
||
| (8 intermediate revisions by 5 users not shown) | |||
Line 1:
{{
[[File:alexander_hamilton_portrait_by_john_trumbull_1806_1789.jpg|frame]]
{{quote|
{{quote|
'''Alexander Hamilton''' was one of the major Founding Fathers of the United States. He was an aide-de-camp for General George Washington, and was one of the main proponents for the United States Constitution, organizing and being the primary writer of ''The Federalist Papers'' with John Jay and [[James Madison]]. As the first US Secretary of the Treasury, he was a proponent for a strong national government, a national bank, a standing army, and a national debt. He also established the New York Manumission Society with John Jay to promote the abolition movement in New York state, the Bank of New York(Mellon) that is the oldest operating banking institution in the United States, as well as establishing a college, named Hamilton College, in upstate New York.
He was bitter enemies with [[Thomas Jefferson]], but [[Enemy Mine|the two temporarily became allies]] during the 1800 presidential election when Aaron Burr, another enemy of Hamilton's, decided to run for the presidency. Four years later, Hamilton and Burr would be involved in a duel, resulting in Hamilton's death. He is memorialized on the U.S. $10 bill and along with [[Benjamin Franklin]] one of two people on U.S. paper money to not be President of the United States (and unlike Franklin, Hamilton was never president of anything).
{{creatortropes}}
* [[Ambiguously Jewish]]: Alexander Hamilton was not Jewish (indeed, he was a Protestant Christian of variable denomination, observance, and piety over the course of his life), but he was educated in a Jewish school before going to King's College (later renamed Columbia University). Interestingly, Hamilton's mother, Rachel Faucett Lavien, is described by [[wikipedia:Alexander Hamilton#cite ref-10|the other wiki]] as being "of partial French Huguenot descent", while her husband, Johann Michael Lavien, who was not Alexander Hamilton's father, was Jewish. (After Rachel and Johann separated, she lived with James Hamilton, Alexander's father.) One has to wonder, though, if Rachel Faucett was partially Huguenot, what was the other part?
* [[Badass Bookworm]]
* [[Broken Ace]]: He was the patron saint of this trope. *See [[The Determinator]] and [[The Woobie]].*
* [[Dark and Troubled Past]]
* [[The Determinator]]: One of the few famous Founders not to come from a land-wealthy family. Hamilton went from a poor orphan boy in the West Indies to Revolutionary War hero and father of American finance out of his sheer force of will.
* [[Duel to the Death]]: The Burr v. Hamilton duel.
* [[Enemy Mine]]: During the 1800 election in the United States, [[Alexander Hamilton]] and [[Thomas Jefferson]] both decided that they hated Aaron Burr more than they hated each other, thus leading to Alexander Hamilton persuading the Electoral College to vote for Jefferson instead of Burr.
** Hamilton had a lot of political enemies, but few he hated more than George Clinton, Governor of New York. Clinton did everything he could to try to stop the Constitution from being ratified by New York and was among the first to paint Hamilton as [[Aristocrats Are Evil|an evil aristocrat out to hurt farmer citizens]]. For this, Hamilton spent years working to destroy Clinton's career, though it didn't work (Clinton became VP to Thomas Jefferson).
* [[Fiery Redhead]]
* [[Gentleman and a Scholar]]
* [[Guile Hero]]
* [[Heartbroken Badass]]
* [[Heterosexual Life Partners]]: He, John Laurens, and the Marquis de Lafayette were so close that Alexander's son John would call them the "three musketeers".
* [[Historical Beauty Update]]: When the ten-dollar bill was upgraded, Alexander Hamilton, despite already being handsome by many measures, was still given a streamlined face lift. Compare [http://www.purplehunt.com/images/ten_dollar_bill.jpg old] vs. [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/84/10_doller_bill_of_usa_new_2005_face.jpg new]{{Dead link}}. It's relatively subtle idealizing, but nonetheless...
* [[Ho Yay]]: There are some amateur historians who think that he and John Laurens may have had at the very least a romantic friendship between each other; the same could be said between Hamilton and LaFayette, who were life-long friends until Hamilton's death. However, it's also worth mentioning that Hamilton had eight children with his wife, and his one known extramarital affair was with a woman.
** It's hardly just the amateur historians. Ron Chernow, an extremely well-respected historian, supports the theory. He shows an avid interest in Hamilton's sexuality throughout the course of his biography, and really likes to point out how feminine Hamilton was, especially for someone with a military background, to slightly amusing results.
Line 34 ⟶ 35:
* [[Showdown At High Noon]]: Perhaps the most famous example of such a duel is the 1804 duel in which American Vice President Aaron Burr killed Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton. The difference here is that dueling pistols were not at all accurate nor meant to be accurate — the point of the duel was to prove you cared enough about the grievance to risk your life. That Aaron Burr actually hit and killed Hamilton was a freak occurrence.
** According to the book ''Founding Brothers'', the two witnesses they had brought along agreed in writing that Hamilton fired first and missed, then Burr fired two or three seconds later, fatally wounding Hamilton. Whether Hamilton missed deliberately or Burr intended to miss but hit by accident is a matter for speculation.
* [[
* [[Red Oni, Blue Oni]]: Red to Washington's blue
* [[The Rival]]: Aaron Burr. Ended in a duel, Hamilton was killed, and the resulting public outcry destroyed Burr's political career. [[Thomas Jefferson]] would also count.
Line 42 ⟶ 43:
* [[What Beautiful Eyes!]]: One contemporary of Alexander Hamilton stated that "These [Hamilton’s eyes] were of deep azure, eminently beautiful, without the slightest trace of hardness or severity, and beamed with higher expressions of intelligence and discernment than any others that I ever saw…"
* [[The Woobie]]: Where to start. His father left the family when Alexander was ten, his mother died of yellow fever two years later, his cousin who was supposed to take care of him and his brother committed suicide, one of his best friends died in battle, his eldest son died in a duel, causing his eldest daughter to become mentally unstable.
{{featuredin}}
* Alexander Hamilton is the protagonist of the hit musical ''[[Hamilton]]'', natch.
* He's a character in the webcomic ''[[The Dreamer]]'' by Lora Innes, in which he's a captain of the New York artillery.
* He appears in the cartoon [[Liberty's Kids]].
* On the [[Mythpunk]] blog, there's a story centering around him where he battles the God of Economics with Adam Smith's katana.
* The infamous Burr/Hamilton duel was featured in Got Milk? TV commercial.
* Lin-Manuel Miranda performed a year ago at the White House Poetry Jam a song from his in-progress project ''The Alexander Hamilton Mixtape'', and it's also on [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNFf7nMIGnE youtube].
* Hamilton appears in the HBO miniseries ''John Adams'', portrayed by Rufus Sewell.
Line 57 ⟶ 60:
{{reflist}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hamilton, Alexander}}
[[Category:Politicians]]
[[Category:Historical Domain Character]]
[[Category:Authors]]
[[Category:Alexander Hamilton]]
[[Category:Lawyers]]
| |||