I am a High school Senior and a musician taking a Duel Enrollment Literature course. Our teacher was able to get us an opportunity to see Hamilton the musical but we have to do a project in order to see it. The project allowed us to get in the mind of Lin-Manuel Miranda when he was writing the music and lyrics for the show. I researched Alexander Hamilton and several other founding fathers to find out what was going on with the constitution and the formation of our government and economy. We also had to make a performance piece like a play, rap, or song to make sense of the historical event through the performing arts.
As a Composer, of course I picked to write a song. When writing the lyrics I found out a bunch of information on Hamilton. Hamilton had a hard life considering his father abandoned the family and the mother died 2 years later. Hamilton rose up throughout all this, he went to Kings College, George Washington made Hamilton his right-hand man in military and for the secretary of treasury. But Hamilton had many conflicts with several people like Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and the biggest conflict was with Aaron Burr. Burr and Hamilton always had an issue with each other ever since they’ve met. At some point Burr and Hamilton would write true or false statements about each other to influence their political pursuits. Burr got upset and challenged Hamilton to a duel and Burr kills him.
I think Students should be taught more about the founding era because it will show students the foundation of the constitution. Reading the Federalist papers really shows how the constitution was created with ideas from all the essays. But also Brutus was another essay that helped lay the constitution. Talking about Madison and Hamilton will give students a better understanding of American history.
Joshua TR 