Me and Alexander Hamilton III

In case you were wondering, Alexander Hamilton wrote  51 of the 85 Federalist papers,  a fact well-known to my fellow Hamilton fans. I tried to find Hamilton’s total lifetime page-count, because he wrote some astronomically high number of pages over the course of his (tragically short) lifetime. The exact number is actually somewhat difficult to source, because I definitely recall Lin Manuel Miranda saying it in either an article or on the PBS documentary “Hamilton’s America” or maybe in Ron Chernow’s book (which I did read–all 825 pages of it) but it is not easily googleable.  Hamilton’s works that survive to this day fill 26 volumes, which is to say, the dude wrote a lot. I remember, in some media, Mr. Miranda himself in awe at being in the same room as Hamilton’s personal lap desk. Because, when you actually did the math, the guy really needed his own lap desk so he could be constantly writing. He did really write “every second he’s alive.”

I am not like Alexander Hamilton, alas. The end of my winter break was filled with a mad dash to finish my ballast-water paper, (which I promise you’ll hear more about, loyal readers, stay tuned). I got that turned in 1.5 hours in before the deadline. I am not the type to be scribbling my deep important thoughts on a lap desk in the middle of the night while inventing a new form of government;  my handwriting is terrible enough and we have ball-point pens and electric light–I shudder to think of what it would like with a quill and having to write by candlelight. Also, if I type a lot, my wrist tends to hurt? I swear I almost got carpal tunnel after finals.

But one exciting thing that happened over winter break was I GOT TO SEE THE HAMILTON MUSICAL IN REAL LIFE. This is big news, people. Loyal readers may recall that I was a fan of Hamilton before it was cool. I remember like it was yesterday (or like, 2.5 years ago): me, in a Marriot in Phoenix in September, it was a gazillion degrees outside, and I was listening to NPR, because I am super cool, and they had an option to stream the soundtrack while it was in previews on Broadway.  I read Chernow’s book, which I lugged back and forth on a plane from Wisconsin to Phoenix for months, all 4 lbs of it, and saw the above-mentioned PBS documentary. But I had not yet seen the musical.

Until December 26, 2017, that is. Finally, the day had arrived. And friends, it did not disappoint. More often than not, if you have an experience built up in your head for over 2 years, you’re bound to have over-high expectations. But this musical surpassed them. I laughed! I cried! It was life-changing.

Anyway, so after seeing Hamilton—which again, was great, if you can scrounge up a small fortune and get yourself to one of the like 3 cities its currently playing in you definitely should–winter break was pretty much over, and I made my way north.

I’m taking Constitutional Law this semester, my one “elective” (seriously, they say you can pick one class, but the powers that be “highly recommend” that you take Con Law, probably because they don’t want to hunt you down in 2 years and nag you into taking it, because it is a required course to graduate.

And Mr. Hamilton has shown up a lot in the course! He didn’t write the Constitution, but he wrote The Federalist Papers in defense of them, and 230ish years after the thing was written, people are still going, “hmm, what did Hamilton have to say about that particular constitutional oddity?” because seriously folks, it really matters what a bunch of dead people were thinking when one is determining whether something is a right guaranteed by the Constitution or not (spoiler alert! The Constitution in its text does not actually enumerate very many rights at all).

I do not remember what Hamilton said about most things. The last time I read the Constitution was in 8th grade.  People in class are throwing all these amendments around, and I don’t actually remember all 27 of them. Some phrases stick out,  such as “necessary and proper clause” and “habeas corpus” because I think that was on the AP history exam, but that’s about it. Frankly, my most up-to=-date knowledge of 18th century American history comes from Chernow’s book and a rap musical about the US’s first treasury secretary. Which, if one wants a 2 minute summary of executive authority regarding foreign affairs, Cabinet Battle #2 is not a bad place to start.

And it is somewhat disconcerting, however, to see how much weight is put on the exact wording of thing, because this document is 4,543 words (7,591 including the amendments) and was written by committee over the course of 3 months. (Hot take: the Constitution as an actual coherent document leaves much to be desired.) That’s not a lot of time, and if you’ve ever done a group project, you have to be skeptical of the level of accuracy that was attained. Also, Hamilton was unsettlingly fond of unchecked executive power, which seems ok, in theory (until you remember who the president currently is) but then you find that whenever the court starts talking about “inherent executive powers” people tend to get detained for indefinite periods of time without charges, which is not cool.

Still, you have to hand it to Mr. Hamilton, despite his monarchial tendencies. We’re still doing things because he said it was cool 230ish years ago. Also, he got a blockbuster musical made about him.