Correspondence between Adam Dunigan and Alexander Hamilton

Note: this is copied and pasted from… Reddit

Some reenactors will blog or otherwise write various things as the characters they portray. I had my first shot at that today, when Adam Dunigan posted a thing on Reddit about our encounter at the HistoryFest. I commented a response as Hamilton; and it was an interesting exercise in interpreting Hamilton’s reflections through my own eyes while mimicking his language enough to sound natural but no so much it sounded forced, as well as trying to follow his subtler habits (in this case, keeping the focus always on proactive action, and having the letter start with the personal and end with the public as his often do.) I do not think I succeeded; but I DID have fun mimicking his (absolutely unhinged lmao) spelling and grammar conventions. Adam’s is below; Hamilton’s is below that.

I am your most humble and obedient servant,

LNP

Friends, neighbors. Adam here. Running for office, but this post isn’t politicking or about my campaign. Just something cool that happened yesterday that I figure people might smile at. Mods, hope it’s permissible.

So, went to history fest yesterday with my campaign crew to collect signatures and see the cool stuff on display. I’m a nerd for history anyway, so it was a fun morning. Anybody who gets the chance should check the mobile museum out.

After seeing the stalls and buying some local kitsch, we were at the main stage for the morning program. We listened to the acapela choir, heard presentations from local officials, and even got to meet our own resident Nobel laureate. Pretty cool.

But then! At one point, Alexander Hamilton made a surprise appearance and rallied troops to the continental cause. It took me a couple seconds to realize, but eventually it hit me: The guy playing Hamilton was actually my buddy and a fellow (former) congressional candidate.

I’m a Democrat, he’s a Republican, and we disagree on a lot of things. But after seeing each other on the campaign trail several times, we’re definitely friends. He had to end his campaign recently with all the tumult, and I was kinda sad I wouldn’t run into my buddy anymore as the season went on. But lo, there he was on stage, in full period garb, hamming it up as only Hamilton would.

He clocked me in the crowd, gave a wry smile, and shouted me out. There were some vague, humorous allusions to me being his Aaron Burr. Crowd seemed to get a kick out of it. Protecting his secret identity for now, but maybe he’ll see this and check in below in the comments.

I don’t know. Politics seems to be ruining lives daily these days. Being a political candidate has been a slog for everyone in this crazy whiplash election. But at least for a few hours yesterday, there was a pure moment to celebrate history and find some unexpected camaraderie with a friend across the aisle. I enjoyed that. And I hope everybody else in Arlington gets the chance to see the mobile museum while it’s in the area. Figured maybe that was worth sharing. Happy Mother’s Day all.

Dear Sir,

I have always thought that well-understood maxim– that friendship ought not be terminated for such light and transient causes as the weighty and enduring affairs of state, sect, political description, popular opinion etc. save WANT OF HONOUR alone– might preserve generally the happiness of our empire from the rage and passion which have in so many circumstances proven the wreck of Freedom and suggested to her enemies the unfitness of a People for civil liberty.

I therefore reciprocate your approbation with gratitude, and endeavour to assure you I have felt it warmly for long before the encounter aforementioned. A man sometimes sagacious always honest has told us “the public’s business must be done; if good men do not, others will.” In the present crisis we have suffered the burthen of the prominence of too many great men and those hunters after popularity in their trail, who make traffick of the baser sides of human nature their bread, and beclouding of the public mind their drink. The shades of those contemptible characters known to past ages to be the banes of all Government, wild men with Anarchy in their hearts and weak men with Tyranny in theirs, travel freely in our midst. Therefore tis not merely a private but a public blessing, when aspirants to positions of esteem count each other as friends and comrades, without regard to faction. Indeed government is not possible without such relations. No grand conspiracy for Liberty ever was consummated but that which began as the friendly correspondence of two or three choice spirits in the wilderness. The price of Union in our lands is the practice of Union in our hearts.

Such attitudes cannot be expected to be the natural political bent of the mass of our countrymen, tho’ I have observed they are often inclined to greater charity than their supposed champions might admit. They see rage and they rage; and ought we blame them? Dignity gravity etc. in the magistrates of government, and the energetic discharge of their duties, are the surest guard against those very fields of rage. The sole and sacred duty of the true politician remains: to establish and maintain that trust and faith the People ought hold in their government, and to ensure that that government might remain worthy of that trust and faith.

This being impossible under so decrepit an order as ours, concerning such malignancies as a) the unchecked domination of all domains of life by petty natural oligarchies and the habits of dependency such order inculcates among the people b) this banal aristocracy’s enforcement of an unnatural and arbitrary division of the interests of society within the two great factions c) the general dysfunction and unmanful subservience these misfortunes have engendered in the Legislative, its failure to pursue its own interests and its resultant slovenly dispositions d) the despotic and capricious character thus to be expected in an Executive whose interests grant incredible potency and influence without proscribing the want of concomitant sagacity and benevolence e) the lethargy and inefficacy to be expected of such an executive’s ministers and organs of state, and all the travails of a government unable to establish justice insure domestic tranquility provide for the common defence promote the generall welfare etc. f) the great ills of which then shall arise, our great countrie becoming a mere stage of internal dissensions and revolutions, adventurisms by foreign powers, and finally the disunion whose prevention has been the object of all American patriots since Dr Franklin’s circulars, the work is heaped before us.

The time of CICEROS has not yet turned to the time of CAESARS; we pray your ascension may be further security against so sad an end.

I am ever your most Humble and Obedient Servant,

A. Hamilton