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| Alexander Hamilton |
Alexander Hamilton was to meet Aaron Burr thereby accepting the challenge of a duel. It was on the bank of the Hudson at Weehawken, July 11, 1804. The following monologue was uttered by Hamilton the evening before he was to meet Burr.
So here it is. No more room to wiggle or squirm. Call me back now dear Nevis to the restorative filth of Charlestown, to my barefoot days of youth. That man who came to see me on occasion would not come near for fear of soiling his business clothing. Mother seemed happy with him about. But who he was to me I was not to learn until much later. Father? I had a father who sold things in trade.
Mother had the money from a marriage she had the sense to step out of, but she would happily lie with James A. Hamilton - my father. What little he earned quickly vanished for although a Scot by birth, he had none of the ruse or cleverness of that race. He was financially incompetent. Aside from toys and sweets, he gave me nothing but his name - Alexander Hamilton.
The woman I called Mom, James called Rachel. She kept the name of Faucette from her failed marriage or otherwise, how would she explain me? I was Alex to my friends, Lexie to Mother and that Dirty Bastard to everyone else. Had Rachel learned to tie her knees together sooner, Alex would not be here today.
Tonight I am angry and frightened. Angry that I had to acquire skills as a boy that I consider far beneath those of a young gentleman. I looked around and selected a man of power and influence to tie myself to him with insipid flattery, run errands and be constantly available to place my head, figuratively under his foot.
Soon too many adults would seek to have me around to help plan my future. Should I now pray for Knox who had prayed so much for me? He would guide me with the teachings of Presbyterian dogma, teach me the basics of reading and writing, assuring me that his letters written on my behalf would open wide the doors of opportunity. I blame him tonight. It was too easy to make him serve me. I became a manipulator of the first order.
Those who would not bend to my will would feel my hot disparaging breath on their backs. I no longer recognized the difference between the truth and lies. Truth had no intrinsic value; lies would only be the opposing position. Words from my lips and my pen were rapier sharp and always did my bidding.
What an arrogant fool I had become. How well I remember that day when the gods sent a wind to fill the sails that sent me away from the warm sands of the islands - not to Scotland or England but to the shores of America.
There I dusted off any sign of my origins and looked for a powerful tree for shelter. Why did I seek to attach myself to greatness? Why did I bother? It was a necessity! Had I been better born, would I have needed to prove myself? No. Instead, I would have languished in the guiltless leisure of nobility.
To John Adams, that sanctimonious prig who thought he was entitled to succeed our first president, I would turn my ire. One accidental term of office is all I had allowed him. He dared to look at me with disdain, his hooded eyes barely looking into mine and his nose sniffing at that foul breath of a bastard nearby. I made him pay for being a dullard and a bore.
Back when I was seventeen, I could destroy any adversary using only half my brain. To those who could serve my aims, I would turn my bright, innocent eyes. Those, useless to me, who persisted to stand in my path were quickly crushed beneath my heel.
So it was with Burr. So much alike were we that it turned my stomach. Was I to stand by and see him sully the purity of our federalist ideals? Should I let him turn our revolution into a French massacre? I blame him for not throwing his arms around me and call me brother. He had fought for Washington as I had but his role in life was Edgar's while I was to slink in the shadows as Edmund.
"How brilliantly he writes! How convincingly he speaks, this young Hamilton." Nicholas Cruger you are also to blame. You could have kept me there in the Indies, taught me an honest trade. Instead you told me I was exceptional and had to rise to my full potential. But tonight Burr frightens me. He has ignored my attempts to put a lighter touch on our adversity. Tomorrow, it will be pistols. I'll fire first into the trees and he will do the same or not.
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