#01.17.2016

I think, re: Hamilton anyway, I'm actually fine with an AU that's mostly about the characters' personal and romantic lives.  I don't need any more of a plot - it can be nice, if it's done well, but it can be a liability too.  But what I do need is the sense that whatever they're working on, however backgrounded or foregrounded it is, is something important.  Which is to say - they can be working in politics, as lawyers or similar, in journalism… they can be students!  (Many of them were, for a time; the girls weren't allowed to be….)  They can be, idk, baristas!  Sure.  But these are 'the hungriest brothers' (and sisters) - that fact is essential to who they are (well, to me) - and if they're not working on something important, cause they're not in a position to, then they're working on trying to get into that position.  ('They' is maybe 'Ham' most of all, but I think it applies significantly to almost everyone.)

Madison was Jefferson's hype man, but he was so much more.  I have no quarrel with how he's represented in Hamilton - that's the most significant role he played from a Hamilton-centric view of history - or, Hamilton's-life-centric, I should say.  And even there, the change from coauthor of the Federalist Papers to Number Two of the Democratic Republican party clearly is a thing happens, we just don't see when and how.

So one of the things I learned from this book is that Madison split from Hamilton not over federal assumption of state debts, but over the discrimination issue.  And honestly, I see where he's coming from there.  Like, Hamilton's right on a practical level, paying off our debts as written is absolutely required if we want the rest of the world to see and treat us as a real country.  And also on a practical level, differentiating between speculating and any more legitimate transfer of debts held is simply impossible.  But on a moral level….

My sentiments are with Madison, outraged that people who bought IOUs from Revolutionary veterans for pennies on the dollar are getting rich, while the soldiers never really get paid for their service.  Now I give Hamilton personally back a lot of sympathy here, because he fought in the war - without pay! - while Madison DID NOT, much as he's claiming to speak on behalf of the soldiers after the fact.  But then again… I thing this is the sort of issue where even though I agree with Hamilton's decision, if I had been there, my feelings would depend just as much on how he framed it.  If he agreed that paying back speculators was a deeply regrettable and unfair but necessary thing - I would keep my respect for him, even if I fought back.  (And we have to remember, when we talk about anti-government sentiment in the 1790s, these people just fought a revolution! - what makes one government different from the next? - that's a question they're still working on).  But if Hamilton didn't sufficiently admit the cost of not discriminating between these debts… I could see how that could end a working friendship.  Thus making the party gap to come much easier.