HAMILTON: NOT THE MUSICAL CLE Credit: 1.0 Friday, June 23, 2017 12:30 p.m. - 1:30 p.m. West Ballroom C-D Owensboro Convention Center Owensboro, Kentucky A NOTE CONCERNING THE PROGRAM MATERIALS The materials included in this Kentucky Bar Association Continuing Legal Education handbook are intended to provide current and accurate information about the subject matter covered. No representation or warranty is made concerning the application of the legal or other principles discussed by the instructors to any specific fact situation, nor is any prediction made concerning how any particular judge or jury will interpret or apply such principles. The proper interpretation or application of the principles discussed is a matter for the considered judgment of the individual legal practitioner. The faculty and staff of this Kentucky Bar Association CLE program disclaim liability therefore. Attorneys using these materials, or information otherwise conveyed during the program, in dealing with a specific legal matter have a duty to research original and current sources of authority. Printed by: Evolution Creative Solutions 7107 Shona Drive Cincinnati, Ohio 45237 Kentucky Bar Association TABLE OF CONTENTS The Presenter .................................................................................................................. i Alexander Hamilton ......................................................................................................... 1 Timeline: The Life of Alexander Hamilton ....................................................................... 3 Hamilton: Not the Musical............................................................................................... 7 THE PRESENTER Dr. William G. Chrystal Post Office Box 528 Charlotte Court House, Virginia 23923 (775) 771-0396 [email protected] DR. WILLIAM G. (BILL) CHRYSTAL is the author of Hamilton by the Slice: Falling in Love With Our Most Influential Founding Father. In addition, he is a Virginia-based scholar/interpreter of Alexander Hamilton, founding father and originator of America's economic system. Dr. Chrystal has performed and spoken around the country (and in the Caribbean), including some places near and dear to the man on the ten dollar bill— such as Charlestown on the Island of Nevis, where Hamilton was born, and Federal Hall and Fraunces Tavern in New York City, where Hamilton worked and played. Dr. Chrystal was featured at the opening of the Hamilton Grange National Memorial in 2012, speaking about "Alexander Hamilton in the Caribbean". He is also a scholar of Reinhold Niebuhr and the Niebuhr family and has written or edited eight books. Dr. Chrystal is the author of many articles in magazines and scholarly journals, and, for ten years was host of the NPR program "The Thomas Jefferson Hour". He invites you to visit his website: www.William-G-Chrystal.com. i ii ALEXANDER HAMILTON (January 11, 1757 – July 12, 1804) Most of us didn't give Alexander Hamilton a thought until the hit Broadway play, Hamilton: An American Musical. Before that, he was the founding father on the ten dollar bill. Or he was the man who was killed in a duel by Vice President Burr. Maybe, if you were a law student, you knew Hamilton was a key creator and primary author of the Federalist Papers. Beyond that, most of us weren't interested or motivated to learn more. So what changed? Hamilton didn't change. He's been dead for 212 years. So what changed was that Lin-Manuel Miranda—the playwright—rekindled in us the desire to root for the American Dream. The story of someone impoverished, without a shred of hope, who makes it big, really big! And that is the story of Alexander Hamilton. In a nutshell, Hamilton was born at a time when the rules of "who gains in society" were being rewritten. He was on the borderline of acceptability from the gene pool criteria. But he was heads and shoulders above others when merit, energy and virtue were thrown into the mix. Hamilton used his wits, knowledge, relationships and character to climb the social and political ladders. When he was eleven, his mother died. His childhood was over. He worked hard, studied hard, and found generous mentors, including some who financed his way to the colonies for an education. He kept his eyes open for opportunities to help the folks who could help him and/or to further his reputation. He proved his worth as an artillery captain at the beginning of the Revolutionary War. Then, he switched roles and became General Washington's primary aide de camp for four years. At the same time, he studied economics in the evenings and established mutually beneficial relationships with a group of American financiers. He changed hats again toward the end of the war and heroically commanded a light infantry battalion at the decisive Battle of Yorktown. After the war, Hamilton took advantage of a short-lived opportunity for "students turned soldier" to take the bar without a qualifying apprenticeship. Hamilton was a natural self- learner and absorbed the law. He passed the New York bar in six months' time. All his young life, Hamilton studied the ancients and their form of virtue. He imitated them until it was habit, and he placed himself in the company of good men and women. As such, Hamilton married the second daughter of Major General Philip Schuyler of Albany, New York. Both Hamilton and his wife, Elizabeth, believed it was a citizen's duty to serve their country in both war and peace. (In the late 1700s, politicians served without pay or with only a minor stipend. Career politicians were supported by family money, not public funds.) By the mid-1780s, Hamilton was one of New York's most prominent lawyers, and he was involved in helping to shape the newly formed country. He was selected by the New 1 York legislature as a delegate to the Annapolis Convention—the meeting that gave birth to the Constitutional Convention and the writing of a new Constitution. Hamilton became a New York delegate to this convention; and, after signing the Constitution, on September 17, 1787, he used his energies to support its ratification. This included teaming up with John Jay and James Madison to author the Federalist Papers (possibly the greatest marketing blitz of the century)—a series of newspaper essays providing in- depth understanding of the Constitution and its proposed form of government. Hamilton wrote more than half of them. When George Washington assumed the presidency, he appointed Hamilton as his secretary of the treasury. In that position, Hamilton shaped American economic policy, developed a plan for paying off the war debt, and established the First National Bank. He was a champion for free trade and commerce among the states and overseas. He was also a trusted advisor to President Washington and influenced virtually every decision of Washington's presidency. Hamilton did not always see eye-to-eye with those who wore their self-interest on their sleeves. He also had higher expectations of political support from his mentors than reality bore out. Hamilton left the treasury department in 1795 to return to his private law practice. But he did not leave until he set in place the mechanics for the United States to become a Hercules among nations. Hamilton's demise came at the hand of Aaron Burr, in a duel at Weehawken, New Jersey. Hamilton did not trust Burr. He thought him to be a Caesar in the making. Thus, Hamilton consistently blocked Burr's political path, including Burr's bid for the presidency in the election of 1800. Later, when Burr ran for governor of New York in 1804, Hamilton, once again, opposed Burr's candidacy. On the pretext of a Hamilton uttered slur against him, Burr challenged Hamilton to a duel. Hamilton tried to move Burr off his position but was unable to do so. As a matter of honor, Hamilton agreed to the duel as a means of settling the matter. He made it known that he would not shoot at his opponent. Hamilton was fatally wounded in the duel and died the next day, on July 12, 1804. Hamilton Quotation on Government There are two objects in forming systems of government—safety for the people, and energy in the administration. When these objects are united, the certain tendency of the system will be to the public welfare. If the latter object be neglected, the people's security will be as certainly sacrificed as by disregarding the former. Good constitutions are formed upon a comparison of the liberty of the individual with the strength of the government. --Alexander Hamilton, Speech on the Senate of the United States, June 25, 1788. 2 TIMELINE: THE LIFE OF ALEXANDER HAMILTON Created by Donald Scarinci of Scarinci Hollenbeck LLC and William G. Chrystal 1/11/1757: Alexander Hamilton, the second of two boys, is born on the British island of Nevis in the West Indies to James Hamilton and Rachael Faucette. Spring 1765: The Hamilton family moves to the island of St. Croix. 1766: Alexander Hamilton begins clerking for a St. Croix merchant, Nicholas Cruger. 1767: James Hamilton (father) leaves the family and eventually the island. 1768: Rachael Faucette (mother) dies of the fever. 10/1771: Nicholas Cruger falls ill and returns to New York. He leaves fourteen- year-old Alexander Hamilton in charge (for five months) of the St. Croix portion of his mercantile company. Fall 1772: Hamilton leaves St. Croix to attend school in Elizabethtown, New Jersey. He is assisted financially by his older cousin Ann Lytton Venton and a series of business men and Christians. Fall 1773: Hamilton enrolls at King's College (now Columbia University). 12/1774: One of Hamilton's first public political essays, A Full Vindication of the Measures of Congress, is published. He is just shy of eighteen years old and a college student at the time. 4/1775: The first shots of the American Revolution are fired, and Hamilton joins a New York militia company.