Cabinet Battle #1

During the show, Washington addresses the other people who have gathered for the debate, but he’s also speaking to the audience in New York City at the Richard Rodgers Theatre.

Washington appreciates that his crew attended the cabinet meeting while making a reference to similar rap intros, such as Jay Z’s in “Izzo”, signifying that something momentous is about to happen.

It’s cool because most battles are like: “I’m the best MC, you’re not the best MC” and it doesn’t really matter. But with this battle, our country will suddenly go in a different direction.

Also, putting it in the world of battle rapping makes it visceral. Like you see Jefferson do a pretty generic battle. He’s like: this is why your plan is bullshit and I don’t even know you. He’s like the prize fighter who doesn’t think he has to train for the fight. He comes in and is like, “remember the Declaration of Independence? yeah I wrote that. Anyway, did you read this thing? It’s too long.”

For the cabinet meeting portion of this song, Washington performs as master of ceremonies, or emcee, a role common to both musical theater and rap because of their shared roots in live performance tradition. In both genres, MCs address the audience, keep the flow between numbers tight, and generally don’t let the energy ebb too far away from the stage.

Hamilton frequently makes use of more conversational rap styles to help transition from scene to scene and song to song throughout its sung-through book, and in this respect, Burr as narrator also serves an MC-like function for the show to the audience. However, it is definitely at its most playfully overt here, when the audience is made aware of itself by the addition of an audience to the stage and scene.

It’s the highest stakes of battles you can possibly write. Because if Hamilton wins, we have a different financial system, than if Jefferson wins.

It’s easy to think in hindsight; well yeah of course Hamilton’s financial plan won. But in retrospect, it was an insane audacious plan, thought of by one guy, drawing on lots of different Greek and British models. To see him fight for that is fun.

Alexander Hamilton created the Assumption bill to aggregate all state debts. While his “redemption” plan (offering to exchange the states' various smaller I.O.U.s for standardized federal bonds) passed quickly, even though Southerners like Madison opposed, his Assumption bill (which would assume all states' debts and establish a ‘permanent’ national debt) was still on the table when Jefferson returned from France.

The plan for a National Bank (the place that would hold all this assumed debt) was not actually part of the debt plan outlined in Hamilton’s First Report on the Public Credit, which formed the basis of the debate leading up to the Compromise of 1790 (as outlined in “The Room Where It Happens”). The National Bank was proposed in the following year’s Second Report on the Public Credit.

“Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” is probably the most famous phrase in the Declaration of Independence. In fuller context (emphasis added):

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it.

Jefferson wants to make sure the new government stays small in order to avoid infringing on these rights.

And his claim of authorship is notable for two reasons:

• Jefferson created the phrase “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” by borrowing liberally from others, as you can read about here.
• Per Chernow, “Jefferson’s authorship remained largely anonymous until he found attribution politically convenient in the 1790s.“ So this line can be heard as him declaring his authorship to the world.

LMM has described these lines and especially the “Oww” as inspired by Drake. But The Notorious B.I.G. might be the better comparison given how well these bars match up with the ones below from “Juicy”:

Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis (happiness)
When I was dead broke, man I couldn’t picture this (shouldn’t settle for less)
50-inch screen, money-green leather sofa (quote ‘em)
Got two rides (surprised you guys), a limousine with a chauffeur (wrote ‘em)

And as for “Oww”, the most notable example of that sound in a Drake song is actually delivered by Jay-Z in “Light Up”.

Jefferson implies that Hamilton is forgetting that citizens, by virtue of the United States Declaration of Independence, deserve the rights mentioned above. Jefferson believes that Hamilton’s plan to give the federal government a national bank and the ability to assume states' debts “flowed from principles adverse to liberty,” and would deprive the common man from having a voice in legislation.

Hamilton contended that having the federal government assume states' debts would bind them together and strengthen the power of the federal government. In addition to expressing the Republican objection to this Federalist plan, here Jefferson also implies that Hamilton’s support of it is self-serving. Making the federal government responsible for more of the nation’s financial future would specifically vest more power in the Department of Treasury, the very department Hamilton was head of, as well as New York, where Hamilton lived and the government was then located.

Also, the phrase “Place your bets” seems like a reference to financial speculation, which is the crime Jefferson will accuse Hamilton of in “We Know.”. James Reynolds took advantage of this perception of Hamilton’s corruption and openly connected Hamilton to his speculative enterprises in an attempt to spread the blame away from his own financial corruption. These accusations ultimately led to Hamilton publishing The Reynolds Pamphlet.

Rumors of Hamilton’s corruption hounded him throughout his life, often fueled specifically by Jefferson, who tried (fruitlessly) after his election to trawl records for evidence of Hamilton’s corruption. Even today, there are those who accuse Hamilton of being a shill for special interests.

Hamilton is very eloquent and forceful when he is trying to convince others, but when his scruples are being questioned he loses composure. Hamilton’s outburst here will parallel his reaction to Jefferson’s later accusations of corruption in “We Know.”

Jefferson is basically saying that a state’s debt should be its own responsibility to pay off—no state should be responsible for another’s failings. Note that Jefferson makes Hamilton’s home state (NY) the perpetrator and his own (VA) the victim. From Hamilton’s point of view, this “to-each-his-own” mindset contradicts the principle of being a Union.

Possibly a reference to Eminem’s line in Jay Z’s “Renegade”:

If the shoe fits, I’ll wear it
But if it don’t, then y'all’ll swallow the truth, grin and bear it

The “if the shoe fits, wear it” idiom (meaning: if something obviously applies to you, accept that) was originally “if the cap fits,” referring to the fool/dunce’s cap. So Jefferson is actually accusing Hamilton of being corrupt and of being a fool. Double burn!

Don’t worry though, this burn actually sets Hamilton up for an epic, mic-drop-level comeback in his response.

States like Virginia, Maryland, and Georgia had indeed paid off their war debts, partially by levying high taxes.

The divide was not entirely north-south—South Carolina was deeply in debt, while Pennsylvania was in decent shape. But the majority of the South would be feeling Jefferson, here.

Once again, Jefferson’s wording sets himself up for Hamilton’s coming rebuttal. As Hamilton will soon point out, the South is sitting pretty thanks to the work of slaves. As far as the slave owners like Jefferson are concerned, their South was built from a position of comfort—in the shade—while their slaves worked in the sun.

There’s an additional irony to Jefferson’s taunt. While most of the sourthern states may have paid off their war debts, Jefferson himself was chronically in deep debt, and his family had to sell most of his property (including Monticello) on his death.

The language of “seed” here plays off of some larger themes in the story. Hamilton refers time and again to the issue of “legacy,” which he finally defines as “planting seeds in a garden you never get to see.” This is emblematic of Hamilton’s tendency to see the bigger, more abstract picture behind things. Chernow noted how, during the Revolution, “Where others saw only lofty ships and massed bodies of redcoats, Hamilton perceived a military establishment propped up by a ‘vast fabric of credit.’” Jefferson brags about the results of his seeds, which anyone could see, and Hamilton continually faced challenges and dismissiveness because his gaze was focused far more distantly.

However, Jefferson did strongly believe that farmers were the source and guardians of America’s liberty:

Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens. they are the most vigorous, the most independant [sic], the most virtuous, & they are tied to their country & wedded to it’s liberty & interests by the most lasting bands.

He even went so far as to try and make America primarily agrarian during his presidency.

Of course, as A. Ham notes in the battle, it’s easy to be “vigorous” when you are not really doing the planting!

A persistent reproof against the finance profession and Wall Street (which Alexander Hamilton helped create). As Carl Fox says in the movie, Wall Street:

Stop going for the easy buck and start producing something with your life. Create, instead of living off the buying and selling of others.

Jefferson is here endorsing the ideas of the early French economists (now known as the Physiocrats) that agriculture is the ultimate source of all wealth. Hamilton began his economic magnum opus, the 1791 Report on Manufactures, by attacking this doctrine.

Jefferson liked “farmers”, but he also really, really hated banks:

And I sincerely believe, with you, that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies; and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.

Jefferson, like many other Virginia planters, was frequently in debt, which likely did not improve his feelings towards banks.

Once again, some historical vs modern contexts at play here:

Historically, Hamilton’s First report on Public Credit, which precipitated the “dinner-table bargain” over the assumption of debt and location of the national capital, was over 40,000 words. The Second report on Public Credit, published later in 1790, was over 15,000 words, and included the creation of a National Bank.

However, Jefferson is also echoing comments from modern Republicans, especially against the Obama administration’s Affordable Care Act, which opponents complained was too long to understand or vote upon.

This line is of a piece with the theme of Hamilton’s incomprehensibility.

Another anachronistic reference, as “the land of the free” is part of the most famous line of Francis Scott Key’s “The Defence of Fort McHenry”:

O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

The poem, written in 1812, was a popular patriotic song for over a hundred years before it officially became the US national anthem, “The Star Spangled Banner,” in 1931.

Perhaps not surprisingly, Francis Scott Key was also an unrepentant slave-owner who didn’t see the inherent hypocrisy of talking about freedom and equality for all in a country where 17% of the population was enslaved (1800 census) and many of the poor, non-white, or non-male were disenfranchised.

Today, only people who are born citizens of the United States are allowed to serve as President. However, the Constitution states (emphasis added):

No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President

This clause reflects the fact that nobody who was around when the Constitution was adopted could be a born citizen, and made it so anybody could run for president, not just people born in the Thirteen Colonies. So despite being an immigrant, Hamilton would have been eligible to run for president along with his fellow founding fathers.

However, Thomas' prayer does get answered. Hamilton will ruin his presidential chances by publishing “The Reynolds Pamphlet,” a detailed account on his three year long extramarital affair with Maria Reynolds (and boy, will Jefferson celebrate).

A reference to the Boston Tea Party that partly led to the Revolutionary War. In response to a new Tea Tax from Britain, a group of Americans called the Sons of Liberty and led by Sam Adams disguised themselves, snuck onto a British cargo ship, and dumped the incoming tea into Boston Harbor.

The colonists' drink of choice switched from rum, based on Caribbean molasses, when the British began to blockade shipments during the Revolutionary War. As a result, whiskey, distilled from local corn, began to flourish.

This particular line is a reference to the Whiskey Rebellion which would take place later in 1791. In the first staging of the musical at the Public Theater, there was an entire song about the Whiskey Rebellion called “One Last Ride.” This was later retooled to become “One Last Time,” and now this line is all that remains in the show of the Whiskey Rebellion.

Hamilton’s advocacy for a whiskey tax came in part from wanting to reduce alcohol consumption in the U.S., as he wrote in Federalist 12:

if [the tax] should tend to diminish the consumption of [whiskey], such an effect would be equally favorable to the agriculture, to the economy, to the morals and to the health of the society. There is perhaps nothing so much a subject of national extravagance, as these spirits.

He wasn’t wrong. Alcoholic beverages were safer to drink than polluted, germ-laden water, and the colonists and early Americans drank a whole lot of it. In the 1790s, annual per capita consumption of absolute alcohol—meaning just the alcoholic content of an alcoholic beverage—was at just under six gallons. By the mid 1820s, it had reached seven gallons. For comparison, the present-day rate is about 2.3 gallons. Basically, the entire early U.S. was drunk off its ass. You didn’t have to be a far-thinker like Hamilton to realize that was a problem.

But whiskey wasn’t just safer than water, it was a practical way for farmers in the west to get crops to the cities in the east. Fresh corn wouldn’t last the long journey—corn whiskey, on the other hand, would, and would also fetch a higher price when it got there. So it was an important source of income for farmers, as well as a popular beverage. As he told Washington, he wanted to get the tax in before the states found some other way to profit off whiskey. A federal tax also consolidated federal power, which of course Hamilton was always happy to do. Clearly this was a flawless plan. Alas, he didn’t factor in the extent of Americans' lingering hatred of taxes (stemming from England’s unfair taxes on the colonies) and the degree to which distillers and drinkers were determined to protect their moonshine from the government.

At this statement, Jefferson drops the mic to indicate a statement so definitive, there can be no future debate. Madison, always ready to play the hype man for his boy T.J., catches it for him.

Jefferson totally started the mic drop trend.

The colonists' drink of choice switched from rum, based on Caribbean molasses, when the British began to blockade shipments during the Revolutionary War. As a result, whiskey, distilled from local corn, began to flourish.

This particular line is a reference to the Whiskey Rebellion which would take place later in 1791. In the first staging of the musical at the Public Theater, there was an entire song about the Whiskey Rebellion called “One Last Ride.” This was later retooled to become “One Last Time,” and now this line is all that remains in the show of the Whiskey Rebellion.

Hamilton’s advocacy for a whiskey tax came in part from wanting to reduce alcohol consumption in the U.S., as he wrote in Federalist 12:

if [the tax] should tend to diminish the consumption of [whiskey], such an effect would be equally favorable to the agriculture, to the economy, to the morals and to the health of the society. There is perhaps nothing so much a subject of national extravagance, as these spirits.

He wasn’t wrong. Alcoholic beverages were safer to drink than polluted, germ-laden water, and the colonists and early Americans drank a whole lot of it. In the 1790s, annual per capita consumption of absolute alcohol—meaning just the alcoholic content of an alcoholic beverage—was at just under six gallons. By the mid 1820s, it had reached seven gallons. For comparison, the present-day rate is about 2.3 gallons. Basically, the entire early U.S. was drunk off its ass. You didn’t have to be a far-thinker like Hamilton to realize that was a problem.

But whiskey wasn’t just safer than water, it was a practical way for farmers in the west to get crops to the cities in the east. Fresh corn wouldn’t last the long journey—corn whiskey, on the other hand, would, and would also fetch a higher price when it got there. So it was an important source of income for farmers, as well as a popular beverage. As he told Washington, he wanted to get the tax in before the states found some other way to profit off whiskey. A federal tax also consolidated federal power, which of course Hamilton was always happy to do. Clearly this was a flawless plan. Alas, he didn’t factor in the extent of Americans' lingering hatred of taxes (stemming from England’s unfair taxes on the colonies) and the degree to which distillers and drinkers were determined to protect their moonshine from the government.

While in the first act, Hamilton was very much supported and encouraged by his friends, it quickly becomes obvious in Act II that he no longer has that sort of back-up, since his friends have all “scattered to the winds.” While Jefferson and Madison work together, and then later Burr joins their cause, Hamilton no longer has a support system at “work,” aside from Washington.

For now, he continues to get by on the strength of his arguments, but that will only work for so long…

Play on words:

On the one hand, he’s saying that Jefferson’s remarks were ‘real nice,’ but that they represent a backward and unrealistic way of thinking.

On the other, he’s clapping back at Jefferson for quoting the Declaration of Independence at him when the dude wrote it over a decade ago at this point.

This may also be a reference to the school of thought around the Declaration of Independence called the “ideal nation”. This is the idea that the Declaration of Independence was created as a description of a future nation, a goal to work towards, not the nation that would be born from the revolution. Hamilton calls him out for quoting it, saying that Jefferson is too focused on his ideals, and not on the reality of governing. George Washington will call him out for it again in the second Cabinet Battle, remarking “Frankly, it’s a little disquieting you would let your ideals blind you to reality.”

In the stage directions, Hamilton prances around in a mocking imitation of Jefferson’s lithe ‘dancing’ from back when he was chilling at Monticello in “What’d I Miss?”:

Probably not an actual Jefferson quote, but often purported to be:

“Some of my finest hours have been spent on my back veranda, smoking hemp and observing as far as my eye can see.”

Hamilton’s jokey imitation of a laid-back rapping style here is colored with reggae to tie into the subtext that Jefferson may have been a bit of a pothead.

Also, considering the direction of this rebuttal, this may be a sly reference to Jefferson having an affair with his house slave, Sally Hemings.

‘Stay mellow’ could also be a subtle reference to Nas' line:

“I try to stay mellow, rock, well, a cappella rhymes’ll/Make me richer than a slipper made Cinderella, fella”

It may be useful to consider the founding of the National Bank and the assumption of states' debts as two separate initiatives with the joint goal of strengthening, centralizing, and making uniform the financial identity of the new United States of America, positioning it as both the lender of record domestically and as the single point-of-contact for foreign powers.

The assumption of states' debts was the bigger sell, and necessitated the Dinner Table Bargain. It bundled all individual credit arrangements for the states centrally and united the financial destinies of the states while also giving the federal government significantly greater negotiating strength in alien (non-US) transactions.

Consider the difference between thirteen people getting individual loans and credit vs. them pooling all of their resources and getting a single larger, more favorable loan. It binds their fiscal responsibility, solidifies a shared identity, and gives them access to much greater opportunity. This collective approach to lending, it’s interesting to note, was baked into Muhammad Unus’s Grameen Bank, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning microcapital/microlending institution.

The creation of the National Bank worked to unify economic and fiscal identity by creating a bank with significantly more capital held centrally than the nation had seen previously, giving it the ability to fund larger projects (including war), issue credit at its discretion, collect taxes, and print money.

The National Bank, though, was seen by the South as another example of federal tyranny and allowed to expire under President Madison…until he found himself unable to pay for the War of 1812, at which point he said, “Oh, shit, I guess Hamilton was right” and began supporting it. Andrew Jackson, though, said, “fuck Hamilton’s bank” and it wouldn’t be until the early twentieth century that the Federal Reserve Banking System again brought a single national bank into a position of importance.

In these lines we see strong echoes of modern-day macroeconomic policy debates, including the long-running argument between Keynesians and monetarists, and disagreements over the effectiveness of massive government spending as financial stimulus – and specifically as an antidote to the financial crisis of 2008. A central question in these debates is whether government deficit spending creates long-term economic growth or merely crowds out private investment while increasing overall debt levels. Seven years into the recovery from the global financial crisis, the jury is still out on those questions.

In contrast, there is widespread consensus among historians and social scientists that the deliberate creation of an instant federal deficit embedded in Hamilton’s bank plan was an unalloyed policy success. But that certainly wasn’t true in the nation’s early years—"Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story" mentions Jefferson’s and Madison’s attempts to dismantle the National Bank.

A diuretic is any substance that aids in urine production. Figuratively, Hamilton is arguing that centralized debt will ease the flow of capital through the new nation—a veritable golden shower.

It may be useful to consider the founding of the National Bank and the assumption of states' debts as two separate initiatives with the joint goal of strengthening, centralizing, and making uniform the financial identity of the new United States of America, positioning it as both the lender of record domestically and as the single point-of-contact for foreign powers.

The assumption of states' debts was the bigger sell, and necessitated the Dinner Table Bargain. It bundled all individual credit arrangements for the states centrally and united the financial destinies of the states while also giving the federal government significantly greater negotiating strength in alien (non-US) transactions.

Consider the difference between thirteen people getting individual loans and credit vs. them pooling all of their resources and getting a single larger, more favorable loan. It binds their fiscal responsibility, solidifies a shared identity, and gives them access to much greater opportunity. This collective approach to lending, it’s interesting to note, was baked into Muhammad Unus’s Grameen Bank, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning microcapital/microlending institution.

The creation of the National Bank worked to unify economic and fiscal identity by creating a bank with significantly more capital held centrally than the nation had seen previously, giving it the ability to fund larger projects (including war), issue credit at its discretion, collect taxes, and print money.

The National Bank, though, was seen by the South as another example of federal tyranny and allowed to expire under President Madison…until he found himself unable to pay for the War of 1812, at which point he said, “Oh, shit, I guess Hamilton was right” and began supporting it. Andrew Jackson, though, said, “fuck Hamilton’s bank” and it wouldn’t be until the early twentieth century that the Federal Reserve Banking System again brought a single national bank into a position of importance.

In these lines we see strong echoes of modern-day macroeconomic policy debates, including the long-running argument between Keynesians and monetarists, and disagreements over the effectiveness of massive government spending as financial stimulus – and specifically as an antidote to the financial crisis of 2008. A central question in these debates is whether government deficit spending creates long-term economic growth or merely crowds out private investment while increasing overall debt levels. Seven years into the recovery from the global financial crisis, the jury is still out on those questions.

In contrast, there is widespread consensus among historians and social scientists that the deliberate creation of an instant federal deficit embedded in Hamilton’s bank plan was an unalloyed policy success. But that certainly wasn’t true in the nation’s early years—"Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story" mentions Jefferson’s and Madison’s attempts to dismantle the National Bank.

This line actually feels like we’re in a time machine and we actually get to speak truth to the real Jefferson — things that we could never say to him.

This was a guy who wrote more eloquently about liberty than most of the founding fathers, but didn’t actually live it. He lived on a plantation with hundreds of slaves. He really participated in this brutal system. So this moment is really cathartic.

But there are lots of moments where slavery is mentioned. There’s a moment in “Yorktown” where Lauren, who was the fiercest abolitionist out of all of them, says, “Does this really mean freedom? And Washington, who is a slave owner, says, “Not yet.”

So we are constantly reminding you that this freedom thing is in quotes because it doesn’t apply to most of the people that live here.

Unlike most of the Founding Fathers, and certainly unlike Jefferson, Hamilton was “a fervent abolitionist.”

The last line of this annotation is a slight double entendre—it’s obviously slaves who did the majority of the planting that Jefferson was talking about, but Jefferson’s relationship (and children, the fruit of his planting) with Sally Hemings was widely rumored, and not particularly uncommon for the time. In fact, Hamilton alluded to that in 1796, when he slammed Jefferson under the pseudonym Phocion.

Daveed Diggs (who plays Jefferson) says these lines are what remains of another cabinet battle that was cut from the show:

There are whole cut songs about the fight that happened in Congress about slavery. It’s condensed to the few lines in the rap battle where Hamilton goes in on Jefferson for having slaves and talking about freedom.

The demo was indeed released, both in Hamilton: The Revoultion and on The Hamilton Mixtape, as “Cabinet Battle #3.”

“And another thing…” is almost comically representative of Hamilton’s personality. As Burr (quite pointedly) noted in “Non-Stop,” he simply does not know when to shut his mouth.

Instead of stopping after he’s made his intelligent retort, he continues on, resorting to increasingly ad hominem attacks which culminate in Washington cutting off the debate.

Jefferson was deeply influenced by the European “Age of Enlightenment,” which was behind the belief that liberty was a natural right of man. By mentioning this influence immediately after calling out Jefferson’s slaveholding, Hamilton is pointing out that he claims to be a follower of this belief, but does not extend that belief to slaves.

Hamilton wrote to Jefferson and Madison about this subject saying:

As to the negroes, you must be tender upon that subject…who talk most about liberty and equality…? Is it not those who hold the bill of rights in one hand and whip for affrighted slaves in the other?

Jefferson was Governor of Virginia from 1779-1781, and so didn’t see any action during the Revolutionary War.

In fact, while Washington, Lafayette and Hamilton were planning their advance on Yorktown, Jefferson was on the run from Cornwallis' cavalry, stealing away from Monticello in the middle of the night and heading to his other plantation, Poplar Forest—mainly because he was too late to call up the Virginia militia.

Patrick Henry brought charges against Jefferson for dereliction of duty due to his mismanagement of the move of the government from Williamsburg to Richmond, and failure to organize the militia in time. The facts of the case would have been well known to Hamilton.

At this point in history, Jefferson’s role as primary author of the Declaration of Independence was not yet widely known. Chernow wrote that Hamilton probably considered himself a more central figure than Jefferson in the shaping of early America—aside from the Declaration and a seat in Congress, Jefferson hadn’t done much other than abandon Virginia’s capital in the war.

This line is a direct reference to the siege campaign around Yorktown, specifically Hamilton’s command of the light infantry assault on redoubt 10 on October 14, 1781.

Trenches, earthworks and redoubts as part of warfare go back to earliest sources, long before World War I popularized the term trench warfare.

More hints at Jefferson’s fondness for hemp, which he did grow at Monticello.

These lines also echo the importance placed on military service (or lack thereof) in contemporary American political debate, especially with regards to the Vietnam War. Getting high instead of fighting in the war? Hamilton’s calling Jefferson a draft-dodging hippie—the same allegation slung 200 years later at William Jefferson Clinton by his opponents.

Historically, the “with the French” part of this line is not entirely correct. Thomas Jefferson didn’t go off to Paris until 1784, pretty much after the war had ended. He was governor of Virginia during the war and was accused of cowardice after fleeing from British troops who were closing in on Monticello in 1781. However, much like Jefferson’s sly allusions to Hamilton’s corruption work as a precursor to the later accusations against Hamilton in “We Know,” Hamilton’s suggestion that Jefferson is a francophile prefaces Jefferson’s later PR troubles in “The Election of 1800.”

More wordplay with near-homophones president/precedent. We get a double meaning here between ‘hesitant when the President asks something of him’ and ‘hesitant because he’s concerned about the precedent it will set.’

Miranda serves up Hamilton’s rhetorical excess with a swirl of closely knit false rhymes:

Jefferson
hesitant
President
Reticent
there isn’t
plan he doesn’t
jettison
Madison
mad as a
hatter, son
medicine
damn, you’re in
debt is in

No wonder the beat cuts out after that last rhyme…

Common term for a crazy person back in the day, as hatmakers frequently worked with mercury and the side-effects weren’t pretty.

Madison may have had panic attacks or epilepsy, a disorder with a historical stigma. Some people believed epilepsy was caused by evil spirits, and well into the Age of Enlightenment, epileptics were considered crazy and worthy of being shunned.

Madison also suffered from hypochondria, which might be why Hamilton harasses him about taking his medicine. In fact, shakes and tremors were also a symptom of prolonged mercury exposure, further linking Madison’s unconfirmed affliction with “mad hatters.”

This could also be a sly reference to James Madison the Mad Hatter, a thief who robbed 18 banks in New Jersey in the 2000s.

Some things never change. Then as now, telling someone their health is in worse shape than the national debt is quite a serious claim.

Madison’s personal financial situation, as well as Jefferson’s, was precarious. Many if not most Southern plantation owners were usually in debt. It was practically a feature of the plantation system. This fact contributed to Southern suspicions and misgivings about banks, which in turn helps to explain their opposition to Hamilton’s plans to create a robust financial sector.

Jefferson in particular talked a good game about understanding money, but he was quite poor at managing his own finances, being in debt or near bankruptcy for much of his life.

Mark Will-Weber writes:

Jefferson’s love of the best wines, and his urge to constantly share his bottles with his numerous friends and dinner guests, greatly contributed to his precarious financial situation. There were some years in which he spent thousands of dollars just on wine. By the time of death … the third president of the United States was on the brink of bankruptcy.

An example of Hamilton’s inability to stop talking. The music stops and he just keeps going and going…. This is a clear representation of Hamilton’s demise—he gets carried away, losing himself to his ambition.

Featuring wordplay on the common idiom “don’t give a shit,” i.e. “I don’t give two shits.” Shits are useless, nobody gives them. Linguistically, they’re nothing but a vulgar way to mark an emphatic negation, so really they’re extra nothing. But the two shits here specifically refer to our resident turds, Jefferson and Madison.

“Shit” appears five times in Act I—“My Shot,” “Right-Hand Man,” “Story of Tonight (Reprise),” “Stay Alive,” and “Yorktown.” Note that these are all songs with Hamilton and his friends, all of whom were involved in rough military service. It never pops up, for example, in the middle of “Helpless.” It appears for the first time in Act II pretty early—this is only the second song—and Hamilton has just thrown his “trench” experiences in Jefferson’s face. It’s as though he’s reliving his time in combat and forgets himself, and that these are peacetime debates. He ultimately comes across pretty poor compared to the refined, aristocratic Jefferson.

This hearkens to one of Miranda’s themes for the show, namely, that the traits that get you to the top don’t always help you stay there.

A belated rejoinder to Jefferson’s earlier line, “If the shoe fits, wear it.” And just in case you’re not sure where exactly his shoe fits:

It’s their butts. He wants to kick them in the butt.

Or rather, he’s threatening to shove his foot up their asses, a common diss with a long history of comedic variations.

Here is another nod to Hamilton’s interesting relationship with Washington. Washington displays possible paternal feelings towards Hamilton several times throughout the play with his insistant advice and intimate conversations, and his delivery of “Hamilton, take a walk” furthers that implication. While addressing Madison and Jefferson the tone is fairly even–frustrated, but impersonal. When he turns his attention to Hamilton that tone markedly changes, his stress on the line makes it deeply personal—suddenly he sounds like a parent, disappointed by his child’s conduct. Hamilton is taken to task, while Madison and Jefferson are simply told to walk their anger off.

Washington telling Hamilton to “take a walk” calls back the opening number of In the Heights, when Benny (also played by Chris Jackson) similarly told Usnavi (also played by Lin-Manuel Miranda) to “take a walk.”

In 1789, James Madison was the representative from Virginia’s 5th district, and also a leader within the House of Representatives. For Hamilton to have his financial plan implemented, he required the necessary support in Congress, and Madison wielded significant influence there.

At this moment, Madison was not on Hamilton’s side.

A nice reference to “The Message” by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five.

It’s like a jungle sometimes
It makes me wonder how
I keep from goin' under

Madison serves as a hype man, of sorts, to Jefferson in both cabinet battles. His lack of energy, however, would not get the crowd on their feet.

The original reference is the “The Message,” but with the hype man’s co-signing of the last line of the chorus, this is also a reference to the Puff Daddy and Mase cover, “Can’t Nobody Hold Me Down.” Jefferson says the main chorus, as did Mase, while Madison echoes the last line, as did Puff Daddy when he repeats, in a lower voice, “Why you wanna take us under.”

A nice reference to “The Message” by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five.

It’s like a jungle sometimes
It makes me wonder how
I keep from goin' under

Madison serves as a hype man, of sorts, to Jefferson in both cabinet battles. His lack of energy, however, would not get the crowd on their feet.

The original reference is the “The Message,” but with the hype man’s co-signing of the last line of the chorus, this is also a reference to the Puff Daddy and Mase cover, “Can’t Nobody Hold Me Down.” Jefferson says the main chorus, as did Mase, while Madison echoes the last line, as did Puff Daddy when he repeats, in a lower voice, “Why you wanna take us under.”

A nice reference to “The Message” by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five.

It’s like a jungle sometimes
It makes me wonder how
I keep from goin' under

Madison serves as a hype man, of sorts, to Jefferson in both cabinet battles. His lack of energy, however, would not get the crowd on their feet.

The original reference is the “The Message,” but with the hype man’s co-signing of the last line of the chorus, this is also a reference to the Puff Daddy and Mase cover, “Can’t Nobody Hold Me Down.” Jefferson says the main chorus, as did Mase, while Madison echoes the last line, as did Puff Daddy when he repeats, in a lower voice, “Why you wanna take us under.”

An apt political cartoon of Jefferson:

Hamilton is referring not only to the North/South divide but to the wealth and consequent snobbishness of many of the Virginians who were involved in the U.S. government. By age 21, Thomas Jefferson had inherited 5000 acres of land and between 20 and 40 slaves. James Madison’s parents were both from plantation-owning families and his father owned more land than anyone else in Orange County, Va. Washington’s family wasn’t quite so highly placed in Virginia, but he married an incredibly wealthy widow, one Martha Dandridge Custis, who brought to the marriage almost 300 slaves and more than 17,500 acres of land. Damn! Compare that with Hamilton’s background and you begin to see why he and the Virginians had such a difficult time relating to one another.

Washington has learned not to call Hamilton “son,” but “young man” isn’t much different. It’s often used by parents when talking to their sons, which once again reinforces the paternal feelings Washington exhibits towards Hamilton throughout the show.

Regarding Washington’s Virginian loyalties, this father of our nation was born near Colonial Beach and grew up on Ferry Farm in Stafford, Virginia, across the Rappahannock river from Fredericksburg. When he retired, he returned to his home of Mount Vernon, in Fairfax County.

Really, Hamilton was right when he called the Virginians “birds of a feather”—Washington was a wealthy slave owner just like Jefferson and Madison. His defensiveness here demonstrates that he’s at least somewhat aware of that. #notallvirginians

In addition to Madison and Jefferson, the bill was also opposed by Attorney General Edmund Randolph (also a Virginian), James Jackson of Georgia, and many Congressmen from the South.

Another example of Hamilton’s conviction that he knows what’s best: it isn’t just that his plan is good, it’s what the country needs. He’s clearly frustrated that his plan is being stalled by small-minded people who refuse to understand his larger vision.

This may be an Obama reference. Barack Obama says the word “folks” a lot – 7.3 times per 10,000 words, according to a 2014 analysis.

Like Washington, Obama had found it necessary to wrangle other politicians who vehemently disagree on important issues (and those who “don’t have a plan, [but] just hate [his]!”). Further, both Washington and Obama were presidents that set precedent for the nation, in Washington’s case, laying out the path for all future presidents; in Obama’s, serving as our nation’s first black president. It thus makes sense to draw a parallel between the two here.

Well, Hamilton, just a few lines ago you laid a low blow to Madison’s disability/poor health, so it’s doesn’t seem like you tried too hard to make any overtures….

Historically, Madison and Hamilton had been very close partners, but in the words of Ron Chernow, “there was little personal chemistry to sustain their friendship when they fell out” over Madison’s decision in early 1790 to oppose Hamilton’s plan for national assumption of debts.

Reprises a line from Act I’s “Right Hand Man,” when Washington says to Hamilton:

Dying is easy, young man living is harder.

This sentiment is also expressed when in “What Comes Next?” when King George says:

You’ve been freed, do you know how hard it is to lead?"

Hamilton is accusing Jefferson and Madison of refusing to change their views or reach an agreement—not from any actual disagreement of ideas, simply in opposition to Hamilton.

The word ‘intransigent’ is actually an anachronism, as it came into use in the 1870s. However, the word got its start describing 19th century republicans and gained its general meaning after becoming widely used by the French. But surely that means nothing, as nobody Hamilton is accusing is a francophile or a republican… Oh wait.

This is, of course, a nod to The Compromise of 1790, otherwise known as The Dinner Table Bargain.

These lines come back to haunt the audience later in the song “The Room Where It Happens,” when Burr wonders, “Did Washington know about the dinner? Was there presidential pressure to deliver?” He can’t know, but here the audience is clued in that there was.

Summary of current GOP strategy. Hillary Clinton also tweeted this line during the 2016 Presidential Election.

Echoed later in “Schuyler Defeated” with Burr’s “They don’t need to know me. They don’t like you.”

This is, of course, a nod to The Compromise of 1790, otherwise known as The Dinner Table Bargain.

These lines come back to haunt the audience later in the song “The Room Where It Happens,” when Burr wonders, “Did Washington know about the dinner? Was there presidential pressure to deliver?” He can’t know, but here the audience is clued in that there was.

This is something that genuinely scares him. Jefferson can insult him, Washington can scold him, but losing his job turns his voice from a little arrogant to flat out frightened.

This is something that genuinely scares him. Jefferson can insult him, Washington can scold him, but losing his job turns his voice from a little arrogant to flat out frightened.

It’s so obvious to Washington that Hamilton is hurting his cause more than helping it by being obnoxious and belligerent, but unfortunately, Hamilton is too convinced that being right is all that matters to really take his advice to heart. Washington could have tried this method:

Washington used the same phrasing at the end of their fight in “Meet Me Inside” to pull rank on Hamilton, but now he addresses Hamilton as Commander-in-Chief of America instead of Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army (speaking of precedent, the carry over of this title is one). It also works as a way to recall Hamilton to their years of military service together and the origins of their close relationship.