Goodbye Alexander Hamelton, we hardly knew you.

Were this a class at accelerated pace and compressed I would seek people like these two bright writers to connect in order to guarantee a top grade. Ben Domenech and Molly Hemingway, both writing for the Federalist in two separate pieces they both outclass me as somewhat superficially silly, they sternly and more deeply serious.

I know who Alexander Hamilton is superficially. I read about him in a book. But that was one book that fulfilled two college-level courses divided by the civil war. It was interesting start to finish relearning again about such things as Whiskey Rebellion and John Brown and such and be able to place them. Then take the two tests, ace them and thave all those historical tidbits linger useful for crosswords without really knowing that much about them. Each incident deserving its own stack of books. Ben Domenech and Molly Hemingway are the student that I am not. They read the stack of books for each incident. They have much more to offer on Hamilton by way of asides than I ever knew. I must say I am impressed with these two pieces. They're both rather too short. I wish they'd go on.

I did not know Hamilton was bastard or that was even relevant, nor did I know he is the only immigrant founding father. I never thought about that. I supposed all founding fathers are close to being immigrants. Those two things I never thought about. But they're both important.

I did not understand it is Hamilton's idea of federalism, power resting with states and fairly weak unifying federal government, that was the model for the United States that prevailed for its first hundred years.

This is how Domenech writes, he informs us Hamilton led a charge taking Redoubt Ten at Yorktown inspiring patriots behind him, being first to jump over a short stone wall and into volleys of musket fire yelling for his fellows behind him to follow and winning their freedom. And had he perished back then Hamilton would have died a more significant American than Obama who deigned to displace him from his ten dollar bill.

Whew.

Domenech continues with other things Hamilton would not have needed to do to be more significant than the guy who displaces him on the ten dollar bill and in so listing we learn things Domenech appreciates about Hamilton did that we did not know. I didn't know. And I aced two  college exams on American History. These points about Hamiltion that  Domenech drops throughout I'll just mark with stars.

* write and curate The Federalist. Well, there you have it. Domenech is writing for an outfit called The Federalist. No wonder they have two great articles.
* construct the constitution. Come on. With help.  Everyone knows it's based on the Virginia model with George Mason as author. But okay.
* establish the U.S. Mint.
* save nation from financial calamity.
* kill conniving traitor Aaron Burr. This characterization is contested in comments. All the comments are quite good actually. I learned as much there.

Domenech is surprisingly aggressive and direct in his dislike for Obama.

Hamilton recognized Burr as a man without principle, bent on power for power's sake, who hated the Founding Fathers even as he envied their influence. He would recognize our current leadership today for its similarities. 

Burn.

Here is were their two pieces overlap. Molly will develop this further to great effect.

This administration has made Hamilton a casualty of the era of daily venal vituperation of people who do not care about history. We live in an era of triumphant minor social justice warrior Twitter mobs which insist upon a foothold in American currency and a casting aside of our history in favor of the priorities of modern identity politics, and under the leadership of an elite which does not care that they are wrong -- and in fact is so bold as to use that to their advantage.

* orphaned immigrant founding father fought to abolish slave trade at the Constitutional Convention.
* invented American money.

Both writers refer to something that Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said that both writers find too banal and too damaging to accept. Domenech cites this, "America's currency makes a statement about who we are and what we stand for as a nation." but that is a bit too innocuous to deserve such strong rebuttal as Domenech delivers. Molly Hemingway is more clear by citing Lew on our currency, "long been a way to honor our past, express our values and capture the prevailing sentiment of the time." And the, "new $10 bill will be the first bill in more than a century to feature a portrait of a woman."  She compares this last statement with an episode of Silicon Valley.

Domenech calls Jack Lew an historical ignoramus. He refers to tea party types he rebutted in the past who believed Obama did not love his country or its history and now he is beginning the wonder if they might have been right.

* loved America
* labored for America
* fought for America
* wrote America's laws
* built America's structures
* died a patriot
* arrived penniless immigrant
* one of most significant American who ever lived
* made our nation what it is
* established Federalist system of government
* secured our liberty
* transformed us to economic power that was and is envy of the world.
* righteous bastard

Domenech concludes, the callow men who are demoting him on our currency today are not fit to lick his boots.

That was brutal as punches with fisticuffs. I'm closing that window and looking at Molly's. Hers is feminine brutality. She takes what Jack Lew said and extrapolates appropriate changes for each denomination of treasury bill and by doing we learn the history of each subject that Molly cares to share that being displaced and why their replacement is more appropriate for reflecting our evolving values so that they are reversed to the extent that history is actually resented. One example for the flavor of it, she does this with all of them.

$20: Andrew Jackson 

Jackson was always an odd choice because he vetoed the central bank. Should he really be on the central bank’s currency, even if we want to honor him for winning the Battle of New Orleans? As my colleague Robert Tracinski notes, “The reason he opposed the central bank is because he viewed it as a mechanism for giving special favors to political connected financiers–basically, as crony capitalism. And for all his faults, that was what Jackson stood for: no special favors for the elites. So the obvious replacement is Hillary Clinton, who perfected the art of turning the federal government into an engine for personal enrichment and the advancement of her friends and hangers-on.”

The Federalist. Ben Domenech, Hamilton: immigrant, bastard, patriot, and Molly Hemingway we don't deserve Hamilton, well done.