When it comes to the Founding Fathers, we all have our pet likes and dislikes. Worthy though he was, John Adams has always struck me as a bit too much of a nervous prig. As for Thomas Jefferson, despite his undeniable brilliance and his oft-proclaimed distaste for the seamy side of politics—a side he knew well and never hesitated to use against his opponents, no matter how many crocodile tears he shed afterward—there is something vulpine and slightly devious about him that repels me. Washington, while morally admirable and the perfect father-figure for the new nation, had a tendency to founder rather than found when not assisted by more sophisticated, articulate associates.
Of these associates, none better combined intellect and action than Alexander Hamilton. A West Indian bastard of uncertain parentage, young Hamilton started life with the cards stacked against him. According to today’s conventional sociological wisdom, he would qualify as a victim of an uncaring society, someone expected to resort to a life of crime or dissipation as a matter of course and capable of succeeding only by funneling off anti-poverty funds from some ill-administered federal program or by duping local welfare officials.
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