Questions
1) Which founding father do you like best?
2) Which founding father do you most resemble? (Dig deep, here.)
My Answers
1) For a while I liked Hamilton best, partly because I wanted to be just like my friend J., a lifelong Hamilton fanatic; partly because Hamilton was the only founding father I knew anything about (I loved Chernow's biography); but mostly because Hamilton has much to recommend him: born from bastardy and in penury, he was self-made, an abolitionist, and a war hero; he established the treasury and, through his vision and policies, put the U.S. on the path to stable prosperity; he cowrote the Federalist Papers and ghosted most of Washington's farewell address; he was brilliant and crazy and hardworking and self-destructive, all qualities that still endear him to me.
And yet now that I'm reading Founding Brothers, my allegiance is crossing over. There is, I believe, something to be said for Last Acts. Benjamin Franklin's was to lend his brains, energy, prestige, and eloquence to a futile but well-meaning attack on slavery. Hamilton's last public act, meanwhile, was to die in an idiotic duel. Whereas Franklin through action atoned (or strove to atone) for being a one-time slave owner, Hamilton--again through action--put his ego before his family and his nation. Hamilton may have been dashing, but in his 50s, 60s, and 70s he did nothing for the U.S.--in those decades he was dead.
2) I am most like Washington, because my comportment is majestic and I look good on a horse. After Washington, though, and I am probably most like the gloomy, vain, whiny, irritable, paranoid, and self-pitying Adams. In fact his description of himself as "obnoxious and disliked" is one I'd gladly apply to myself, if only--{sigh}--someone was around to listen to it.
Answers for the Other Kibbitzers
I won't speculate as to how the other kibbitzers would answer the first question, but I'll peg each of them to a father and let them squirm under their new labels:
- Goat is energetic and impetuous: he is our Hamilton
- The Whale is our purist, our idealist: he can only be Jefferson
- Sweatshirt is as accomplished as he is self-effacing, as talented as he is modest: he mends bridges and must be our Madison.
