LAUSR

Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Broadway blockbuster Hamilton: An American Musical kept Alexander Hamilton on the $10 bill and has transformed this unlikely founding father into a Broadway celebrity. But while Hamilton is currently seen as a heroic figure, throughout much of the nation’s history he was seen as “un-American”—a closet monarchist who allegedly hated the people, the “great beast.” Many progressive historians and biographers repeated distorted accounts first circulated by Thomas Jefferson and his lieutenants, all of whom were determined to ruin Hamilton’s reputation. While Lin-Manuel Miranda restored Hamilton to his proper standing as a key American founder, he too has misrepresented the real Hamilton. The real Alexander Hamilton was a statesman devoted to the rule of law and to moderation and possessed a healthy aversion to utopian schemes.