Washington On Your Side

This is the moment where Burr, although he had never truly supported Hamilton, starts working actively against him, by provoking his known enemies into taking action against Hamilton. The staging makes this even clearer: Burr is slyly looking over his shoulder at Jefferson on an otherwise empty stage as he says these lines.

This song brings into stark relief one of the themes of the musical: Washington’s unassailable position as the “father”/leader of the country (unanimously elected in 1789 and reelected in 1792) is a double-edged sword. For younger men of ambition (Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison, and even Burr) Washington’s prestige is both a source of idealization (they all admire him) and frustration (Washington picking Hamilton over Burr, the Cabinet Battles, being called “son”).

It also contributes to a kind of sibling rivalry. Hamilton is the favorite son, and this song, the other three sing about their jealousy.

Despite being vigorously anti-partisan, Washington’s Federalist leanings contributed to the growing resentment and divisiveness among his advisors. Since they believe Washington has chosen a “side,” they believe they must move against him to act in their own interests.

Love him or hate him (and Hamilton leans towards the hate side), it’s impossible to deny that Jefferson was one of the smartest men on Earth during his lifetime. This verse conveys his genius through a seemingly endless series of rhymes.

He starts with these:

• reactions
• factions
• fractions
• retractions

He then lops off the trailing ’s' and uses this series:

• satisfaction
• passion
• fashion
• ration
• cash in
• askin'

Then he drops the ‘in’ and does a series of near-rhymes with just the ‘ask’ part:

• task
• mass
• at last
• unmask

That’s fourteen related rhymes in ten lines. He ends with a series of little one-off rhymes in close proximity:

• cock it/pocket
• load the gun/Washington
• watching/Washington (a semirhyme)

And there’s the nice little stress/press rhyme towards the beginning. And most of it is in iambic heptameter, which gives it a fantastic rhythm.

It’s like a fractal of poetic technique—the closer you look, the more you see.

In these first few lines, Jefferson uses metaphors of both physics and math (division and fractions) to talk about the partisan gulf that is widening in the Cabinet, emphasizing his own intellectual prowess.

The first line is a statement of Newton’s Third Law of Motion.

Newton is considered one of the fathers of the Age of Enlightenment, an era of philosophy born in the 16th century which reverberated into the early 1800s. Rather than accept traditional religious dogma as the be-all and end-all of spirituality and morality, it supported Deism and secular humanism. It emphasized the individual’s ability to reason, rationalize, and scientifically experiment. It rejected blind faith and paternalism and encouraged skepticism and toleration. (Did you hear that, boys? Skepticism AND toleration.)

Needless to say, it animated much of the political theory of the nascent United States (separation of church and state, anyone?). It certainly colored the educations of the Founding Fathers, many of whom are considered leading figures in the American Enlightenment. Thomas Jefferson in particular was considered a great mind of the generation (see “Cabinet Battle #1”).

Jefferson also restates the first line in “Election of 1800.” Both these songs witness important political moments in Jefferson’s career.

Hamilton’s tenure as Treasury Secretary was the beginning of political factions. At the signing of the Constitution, everyone was a federalist—they supported the redesign of the federal government outlined in that document and in “The Federalist Papers.” However, after that overall goal was agreed upon, everyone was no longer united over what exactly a federal government should entail. Those that supported the continuing consolidation of power in the federal government continued to call themselves Federalists and rallied under Hamilton’s vision. Those that balked at this centralization of power began to huddle under the umbrella of “Anti-Federalists” held up by Hamilton’s former Federalist Papers co-author, James Madison.

Once Hamilton started arguing to develop a financial sector and fund the debt/create a bank, factions splintered further. Under the leadership of Thomas Jefferson, the Anti-Federalists were re-christened the “Republicans” (later Democratic-Republicans).

All of the founders wanted to avoid creating factions, and they often warned about factionalism in dire terms. The word “faction” appears in The Federalist Papers 63 times. Washington was particularly opposed; in his Farewell Address, he warned:

The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.

And yet—despite the universally beloved President Washington calling for people to avoid factions, despite Hamilton and Madison both saying in The Federalist Papers that factions were a bad idea—they formed anyway, and some of their harshest critics ended up leading them. It seems like parties arise naturally even in non-partisan governments, just as black markets arise naturally in command economies.

In these first few lines, Jefferson uses metaphors of both physics and math (division and fractions) to talk about the partisan gulf that is widening in the Cabinet, emphasizing his own intellectual prowess.

The first line is a statement of Newton’s Third Law of Motion.

Newton is considered one of the fathers of the Age of Enlightenment, an era of philosophy born in the 16th century which reverberated into the early 1800s. Rather than accept traditional religious dogma as the be-all and end-all of spirituality and morality, it supported Deism and secular humanism. It emphasized the individual’s ability to reason, rationalize, and scientifically experiment. It rejected blind faith and paternalism and encouraged skepticism and toleration. (Did you hear that, boys? Skepticism AND toleration.)

Needless to say, it animated much of the political theory of the nascent United States (separation of church and state, anyone?). It certainly colored the educations of the Founding Fathers, many of whom are considered leading figures in the American Enlightenment. Thomas Jefferson in particular was considered a great mind of the generation (see “Cabinet Battle #1”).

Jefferson also restates the first line in “Election of 1800.” Both these songs witness important political moments in Jefferson’s career.

This line alludes to the fact that by the end of Washington’s first term, fiercely partisan newspapers were the norm. Federalist and Republican papers viciously and unrepentantly attacked those on the other side of the aisle. Hamilton founded the New York Post to facilitate just these kinds of endeavors.

Duels were fought to “get satisfaction”, that is, to settle a matter of honor. Jefferson using this particular language is a threat against Hamilton, especially when he doubles down on gun imagery later in the verse.

And of course satisfaction is a theme in this show. Jefferson is another person in our musical who is never satisfied…

“Fits of passion” is sort of like an intentional spoonerism of the phrase that ends the next line: “pits of fashion.” Clever. Lin writes in Hamilton: The Revolution (p. 199):

One of my go-to conversational gambits is switching the letters of someone’s name. ‘Jeremy McCarter? More like Meremy Jakarta.’ It’s not funny, but it makes me laugh, and I find my brain is doing it all the time. Anyway, I stumbled upon Pits of Fashion/Fits of Passion, realized that they’d both work, and worked backwards to earn them.

Chernow writes:

Hamilton had a taste for courtroom theatrics. He had a melodious voice coupled with a hypnotic gaze, and he could work himself up into a towering passion that held listeners enthralled.

As for primping, Chernow writes:

He was as fastidious as a courtier in caring for his reddish-brown hair, and his son James recorded his daily ritual with the barber: “I recollect being in my father’s office in New York when he was under the hands of his hair-dress[er] (which was his daily course). His back hair was long. It was plaited, clubbed up, and tied with a black ribbon. His front hair was pomatumed [i.e., pomaded], powdered, and combed up and back from his forehead.”

Lin-Manuel Miranda discussed how Hamilton was mocked because he “overdressed like crazy”—"It’s new money,“ he laughed, and "very Kanye.” Indeed, in the previous number, Jefferson called Hamilton out for this: “Smells like new money, dresses like fake royalty.”

It is very modern hip-hop culture. After all, if you grew up with holes in your zapatos, you’d celebrate the minute you was having dough.

In the play itself, this line has a bit of comedy behind it, because Jefferson himself is wearing a ruffled hot pink suit.

The “poorest citizens” and “farmers” are Jefferson’s much-vaunted Southerners who would (presumably) not agree with Hamilton’s insistence that power be given to a central government through the accumulation of their debt.

But, I mean, did anyone really ask the Southerners? Did Thomas Jefferson ever even speak to a poor person? That seems like something Thomas Jefferson might have forgotten to do. They don’t even speak French!

Hamilton’s financial schemes paved the way for Wall Street’s first speculators and the birth of the stock exchange. Even at this early stage, apparently the wolves were hungry.

Lin wrote in Hamilton: The Revolution (p. 199):

Jefferson may be Hamilton’s antagonist, but he’s not wrong: Hamilton’s plan left veterans who sold their war bonds out in the cold and at the mercy of those who bought them knowing the government would buy them back at cost.

“Bring to task” is an idiom meaning to punish for a wrongdoing. Here, Jefferson is calling for someone to make Hamilton pay for his actions within Washington’s cabinet as the Treasury Secretary. While Hamilton continues to badger Congress to further his debt plan, members of the opposing party, the Democratic-Republicans, are becoming fed up with him. Madison, Burr, Jefferson finally take it upon themselves to see Hamilton punished.

Good old oppo research, that mainstay of dirty politics, wherein politicians have others dig up dirt on their rivals to undermine their reputation if not unseat them entirely. Mudslinging was quite common in the early days of the republic, with extended diatribes appearing in rival newspapers, often written under pseudonym.

“Vacuous” is used figuratively here to mean “unintelligent,” but taken literally as “devoid of substance,” it makes a nice example of oxymoron when combined with “mass.” The scientific language also ties in nicely with Jefferson’s use of physics and math metaphors at the start of the verse.

Of course, Burr’s the one who eventually pulls the trigger on him after Van Ness loaded the gun. (No word on which of them cocked it.)

Thanks for the idea, Thomas.

Perhaps another double entendre as at the end of “Cabinet Battle #2”.

Actually, the double entendre is reinforced by the use of “prick” and “cock” in earlier lines.

Jefferson and Burr, both of whom are never particularly chummy, united here over their mutual enemy – Hamilton. They are singing in unison here, but later on, in the “Election of 1800,” it’s kinda Hamilton ft. Jefferson vs. Burr. Unlike Burr, though, Hamilton doesn’t share verses and make alliances. He’s always out for what he wants.

Presumably especially referring to the tenth amendment which makes explicit that the federal government can only do what is explicitly permitted Constitutionally, and remaining powers are reserved for the states. Jefferson thought the National Bank and indeed, many of Hamilton’s programs, were unconstitutional abuses of federal power.

When Washington asked Jefferson to give his opinion on the constitutionality of the National Bank, this was his response citing the Bill of Rights:

I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground: That “all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States or to the people.” To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition.

Of course, once he was president, Jefferson executed the Louisiana Purchase despite the Constitution not explicitly giving the federal government the power to purchase land. The modern pattern of politicians criticizing presidents for overstepping their authority, then doing the exact same things once they’re in power, has been with us as long as the Constitution has.

The ink has not yet dried on the document that secured the rights of the people, and already Hamilton is trying to con those people out of those rights, monetarily.

At least in his opponents' eyes.

By citing a well-loved document drafted by one of their own, they prove and perpetuate to themselves the idea that “We’re right and Hamilton is wrong!”

Jefferson would later get his own back by doubling the size of the country with the Louisiana Purchase.

This refers to the British Empire, which was the government Jefferson and the other revolutionaries previously lived under. In terms of literal size, the British Empire was known for nearly overtaking the populated surface of the planet at one point in time, and administration of that vast population was difficult to oversee. It might also refer to the British government itself, which was heavily bureaucratic and often needlessly complicated and insular.

Madison is also betraying a bit of his Democratic Republican bias here, as his party was more in favor of a decentralized government that gave more power to the citizens and states and less power to the federal government. Seeing Federalists like Hamilton propose these huge federal-level undertakings would have sent a chill down his spine.

Lin wrote in Hamilton: The Revolution (p. 199):

Madison used to have his own verse, wherein he said: ‘I used to write with him/Imbibe with him and ride with him/I find myself on this side of a sizable divide with him./We used to fight for the right to be left alone./But left alone to his own devices, he’s a crisis all his own.’ Ended up cutting everything but these lines, as a lead-in to the group verse.

This isn’t the first time Ham’s eyes have been mentioned—Eliza says she’s “drowning” in them and Angelica immediately notices his “intelligent eyes in a hunger-pang frame.” Meanwhile, the Democratic-Republicans see not allure and intelligence, but arrogance and deceit.

This sharp contrast highlights a central theme of Hamilton—history is in the hands of the person telling the story. There is no single truth; any account of Hamilton is inherently biased based on the perspective of the person giving it.

This may be an allusion to Hamilton’s lower-class immigrant status. The “politics of smell” is often used as a literary device. Writer George Orwell put it succinctly, saying, “The lower classes smell.”

Miranda makes scent references several times in Hamilton as a marker of class distinction. In “We Know,” as Hamilton is being castigated for improper conduct in the Reynolds affair, he says that Jefferson “sent the dogs after my scent.” In “Alexander Hamilton,” the very essence of Hamilton’s low status as an orphan whoreson is told via the line, “sitting in their own sick, the scent thick.” Contrast this with the perfume Burr mentions in “The Schuyler Sisters.” Perfume, rather than a “thick scent” was a marker of status. The ephemeral nature of perfume (it literally evaporates) meant that it was a true extravagance, available only to the wealthy.

The subject of “Cabinet Battle #1.” Clearly, though Jefferson and Madison made the deal a little bit ago, they’re still sore.

On the surface, this lyric simply means “We have to stop Hamilton’s disastrous plan. If we don’t stop him, we’re helping him follow it through.” But, the words “aid and abet” signal to a deeper meaning.

In legal terms, to aid and abet is “To assist another in the commission of a crime by words or conduct,” and a misdemeanor. By using terms more commonly used in the courtroom, Burr, Madison, and Jefferson foreshadow what they’re about to do to Hamilton: charge him with embezzlement (a.k.a. stealing money from the US Government). Before they even say a word to Hamilton, our three Democratic Republicans planted the idea that the national banking system is just another elaborate scheme for Hamilton to syphon the people’s money into his own account.

From the State Department:

Tension within Washington’s cabinet—notably with Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton, who favored an assertive central government—prompted Jefferson’s resignation.

From the irascible pen of John Adams:

I am told Mr Jefferson is to resign tomorrow. I have so long been in an habit of thinking well of his Abilities and general good dispositions, that I cannot but feel some regret at this Event: but his Want of Candour, his obstinate Prejudices both of Aversion and Attachment: his real Partiality in Spite of all his Pretensions and his low notions about many Things have so nearly reconciled me to it, that I will not weep. ….instead of being the ardent pursuer of science that some think him, I know he is indolent, and his soul is poisoned with Ambition. Perhaps the Plan is to retire, till his Reputation magnifies enough to force him into the Chair in Case. So be it, if it is thus ordained. I like the Precedent very well because I expect I shall have occasion to follow it.

Burr, as he does throughout, continues to not have an ideological beef with Hamilton… he just hates how Hamilton is always talking.

Miranda wrote this passage expressly for Daveed Diggs and his uncanny rapping abilities:

I gave [Diggs] insanely hard raps that I can’t even deliver, and he does them like they’re nothing! … I keep giving him harder things to do and he keeps knocking them out of the park. I can tell you one of the last things I wrote for this incarnation of Hamilton was [the scene] when Jefferson realizes he has to resign — ‘I’m in the cabinet/I am complicit’ — he has this crazy rhyme, and I wrote that because I knew I had Daveed.

Miranda wrote in Hamilton: The Revolution (p. 200):

This section is very Kendrick-Lamar-inspired—he’s the master of these polysyllabic gems that seem to go off the rails but are so perfect that the music has no choice but to stop and meet him on the other side.

Indeed, the passage is so powerful that it crescendos to the high point of the Virginians' frustrations in this song, punctuated by “Oh!”

Hamilton’s ambition is patently manifest, and he’ll do anything to keep and increase the power that he’s got. Jefferson turns this into a bit of a sexual innuendo—instead of ‘“grabbing” as in 'snatching’ or stealing power, he’s instead “grabbing” as in ‘groping’ or caressing it. Basically, he’s sucking up to Washington in order to get what he wants.

This entendre isn’t even really double—it’s right out there.

Jefferson reaches the conclusion that if Washington is going to keep playing favorites and not listening to the expert advice that he and his democratic-republican colleagues have to offer against Hamilton’s Federalist ploys, he’s going to have to end the cycle the only way he knows how—by breaking it.

The entire verse, from the start of “I’m in the/ CAB-i-net” is written in dactylic meter, and it even continues into Madison/Burr/Jefferson’s lines with “IM-mi-grant/IS-n’t some/BO-dy we” and “IM-mi-grant’s/KEEP-ing us/ALL on our.”

As Jefferson’s thoughts come faster and his dissatisfaction becomes more intense, the complexity within this meter ratchets up in sympathy. In these few lines, Jefferson spits a ninefold internal false rhyme on the “is-ih” sound, complete with alliteration and assonance galore—sometimes in all three syllables of the dactyl:

[com-]plicit in
kiss it /If
isn’t gon'
listen /To
disciplined
dissidents
this is the
difference:
This kid is

All hail Lin-Manuel Miranda.

The flow of this line is reminiscent of Sticky Fingaz’s verse on Eminem’s “Remember Me?”

“Better come better than better to be a competitor This vet is ahead of the shit, it’s all redder You deader and deader
A medic instead of the cheddars and credda Settle vendetta with metal Beretta from ghetto to ghetto"

Hamilton wasn’t elected; he was appointed by George Washington. Burr refers to Hamilton as “an immigrant” throughout the show, and when they are at odds with Hamilton, Madison/Jefferson/Burr reduce Hamilton to his immigration status, despite his accomplishments.

Given Lafayette and Hamilton’s pro-immigration line in Act 1, this is also a commentary on immigration in general, which is a frequent theme in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s work.

The Democratic-Republicans were the main foil to Hamilton’s Federalist Party in the early years of the United States of America. On another note, Miranda’s lyrics separate Burr from the other Democratic-Republicans by having him stay silent when they mention how they are Southern (as Burr was a Northerner), demonstrating that Burr is still an outsider in this group.

The term “Democratic-Republican” is an anachronism, as they referred to themselves as simply “Republicans.” However, according to Encyclopedia Britannica, Federalists called them Democratic-Republicans right away, and the Party adopted the name officially in 1798, so the anachronism isn’t extreme:

Although the Federalists soon branded Jefferson’s followers ‘Democratic-Republicans,’ attempting to link them with the excesses of the French Revolution, the Republicans officially adopted the derisive label in 1798.

The choreography here features Jefferson, Madison and Burr doing the “A-town Stomp,” a dance move popularized by Southern rappers from Atlanta. This accentuates the southern identity of the political party.

Chernow:

From modest origins, the Treasury offices proliferated until they occupied the entire block … By the standards of the day, this represented a prodigious bureaucracy. For its critics, it was a monster in the making, inciting fears that the department would become the Treasury secretary’s personal spy force and military machine. Swollen by the Customs Services, the Treasury Department payroll ballooned to more than five hundred employees under Hamilton, while Henry Knox had a mere dozen civilian employees in the War Department and Jefferson a paltry six at State, along with two chargés d'affaires in Europe. Inevitably, the man heading a bureaucracy many times larger than the rest of the government combined would arouse opposition, no matter how prudent his style.

“In the weeds” is a popular phrase that means ‘to get bogged down in the details of something.’ However, in the political arena, the phrase does not have a negative connotation, and “getting into the weeds,” or “weed wandering,” i.e. digging around in vast amounts of small but important details, such as the minutiae of financial or legislative analysis, is considered an important step in the creation of sound policy. Here, there’s a sinister connotation. The devil’s in the details, after all.

“The weeds” is also where poker players and duck hunters lie in wait to ambush their prey. In fact, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s 2009 performance at the White House of an early version of “Alexander Hamilton” refers to Hamilton’s enemies “waiting in the weeds for [him]”.

“Look for the seeds of Hamilton’s misdeeds” is likely a reference to the sexual nature of Hamilton’s indiscretions. Seed is both a slang and archaic term for semen.

Why did Jefferson, Madison, and Burr want to get in the weeds to look for the seeds of Hamilton’s misdeeds? Democratic-Republicans were suspicious that Hamilton was using insider information from the Treasury Department to speculate, or invest in risky government securities for massive profit. He wasn’t, and in fact, Chernow notes that Hamilton was so scrupulous that he shed all investments that could be considered conflicts of interest. Unfortunately for future him, someone was speculating in the Treasury… James Reynolds. Even better.

Historically, even after Alexander was cleared of (legal) wrongdoing in the Reynolds affair, Thomas Jefferson waited in the weeds for five years before using what he knew to launch rumors about Hamilton.

“Follow the money” is a famous quote from the 1976 film All the President’s Men, which dramatizes Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein’s role in uncovering the Watergate Scandal. A secret informant says the reporters must “follow the money” in order to discover who was behind a break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington. In real life and on film, Woodward and Bernstein discovered that checks for the Nixon re-election campaign were being deposited into the accounts of one of the Watergate burglars. The trail led higher and higher, until it implicated President Richard Nixon, who had to resign.

Madison here is suggesting something similar – that by looking at where money is going, they can find Hamilton’s wrongdoing.

More recently, it was used in the TV drama “The Wire,” to discuss how hard it is to track down criminal gangs, because the money can often lead to politically important or influential people.

Another anachronistic reference, this time to “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” a fairy tale published by Hans Christian Andersen in 1837. The story tells of the downfall of a vain and impressionable emperor who is convinced to buy an “invisible” suit after being promised that it is only invisible to people who are unfit for their positions. Of course, there is no suit at all, but his courtiers and the public are afraid to call out this obvious fact for fear of losing their status. It is only once a child speaks up about the emperor’s nakedness that everyone can call out the truth.

The moral of this tale is that people are often too afraid to speak truth to power. Jefferson (and Burr and Madison) feel as if they are the only ones speaking up about what they perceive as Washington’s Hamilton bias.

Jefferson could also be trying to say that Hamilton himself is like the infamously flashy dresser of this fairytale, whose downfall was his own vanity. Jefferson has made many jabs at Hamilton’s style, saying that he dresses like fake royalty. As in the story, the public could turn on Hamilton once a seed of doubt is placed in their minds, especially if they can uncover a big seed like Hamilton abusing Treasury funds to engage in land speculation (the preferred method of government corruption at the time).

Lin wrote in Hamilton: The Revolution (p. 201):

The line at the Public [Theater, Off-Broadway] was ‘It’s nice to have something to really oppose.’ But I like this better. It’s more of a riddle.

This single word is an enjambment that shoehorns a contradiction to the line that precedes it. Despite the entire song being about the growing assertiveness of the Democratic Republicans, the power of Washington’s own personal charisma is enough to stay their hand, at least until he resigns in the next song. It also shows the stubborness of Jefferson and Madison especially, stating that even though they won’t back down from Hamilton, it’s gotta be a good thing to have Washington on your side.