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Alexander Hamilton

Should America’s Allies Be Held to Woke Standards?

July 6, 2023
by Peter Feinman
A crew from John Mullins Rigging and Hauling loads the Maj. Gen. Philip Schuyler statue onto a truck after removing it from its pedestal in the front of City Hall on Saturday in Albany. Jim Franco/Times Union

A previously below-the-radar person recently made the news when his statue was removed. The headline on the front page of the Arts section of The New York Times (June 26 print) was:

“In Albany a Statue Comes Down: The bronze of Philip Schuyler, a Colonial-era patriarch who owned slaves was removed.”

The almost full page continuation on page 5 had the headline “Albany Removes a Bronze Statue of a Slave Owner.”

The statue was of someone who was not well known. People passed it without thinking twice about who he was. He was a general during the American Revolution, but as the article begins:

There was a time when one probably had to be a committed Revolutionary War buff or an aficionado of early Albany aristocracy to know the name Philip J. Schuyler.
            But that was before “Hamilton.”

The musical put Schuyler on the map.

In real life, Hamilton did marry a daughter of Philip Schuyler. The sudden musical prominence of the marriage drew attention to Hamilton’s father in-law. Schuyler owned a home in Albany now operated by the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation. In addition he had a home north of the city in present day Schuylerville operated by the National Park Service. He also owned people and their burial site has been discovered at Schuyler’s Flats in-between those two locations. It has been excavated by the New York State Museum with appropriate rituals being conducted.

Finally, three years after the Albany mayor issued an executive order in 2020 to remove the statue it was. Naturally there had been a flurry of debate in local political circles about whether the statue should be removed and what should be done with it once it was. Those “discussions” have been dutifully reported in the local media and history outlets like New York State Almanack. Now that the statue has been removed, it has been featured in The New York Times. It made the big time. At no point during this period has there been any change in the scholarship about who Schuyler was and what is role had been in the American Revolution.

In the meantime, I just received this notification from the National Park Service:

Virtual Tours of Schuyler House

Experience a virtual tour of the Schuyler House. This estate was the northern plantation and country home of General Philip Schuyler both before and after the Battles of Saratoga. The British burned the original house and its outbuildings during their retreat. The present house, erected in 1777 shortly after Burgoyne’s surrender, was the center of Schuyler’s extensive farming and milling operations. Access the tour here.

And as far as I know it is business as usual as the state owned house in Albany which had doubled its attendance between Hamilton and Covid.

SHOULD OUR ALLIES BE HELD TO THE SCHUYLER STANDARD?

Schuyler’s treatment raises issues about how we should choose our allies. Should our allies also be held to woke standards like our statues and heroes? It used be that allies could be criticized for not being a Jeffersonian democracy, but now that standard itself is disputed. It turns out that being a Jeffersonian democracy in the real world may mean not being a “Jeffersonian democracy” in the idealized world.

So what should the United States of America do? Should the same care now applied to choosing our heroes also be applied to choosing our allies? Which of our allies would pass the woke test?

Which ally, if any, never had slavery?

Which ally, if any, never participated in the slave trade?

Which ally, if any, never derived any benefits from the slave trade?

The answer may be few and far between. In fact, during the Second World War, the United States allied with Joseph Stalin, one of the greatest mass murderers in the twentieth century. For Ukrainians today, Putin is repeating the horrors from a century ago.

THE REAL WORLD

The reality that many of America’s allies have not been democracies or champions of freedom is hardly a secret. The alliance with the Soviet Union against Nazi Germany has been justified as a political necessity. We cannot chose the world we live in so we have choices to make in that real world. Sometimes those choices are not very pleasant but that is the real world.

During the Cold War (World War III), the United States allied with many countries who were not even remotely free. We did so because they were not Communist, a plausible reason for doing so. Sometimes we did for less respectable reasons – like American big business had a lot invested in the current order and did not want to jeopardize its holdings. Think of how different things would have been and how many lives would have saved if only we had recognized that Ho Chi Minh and Fidel Castro were nationalists and not Communists.

Even today while we are working with Vietnam we still cling to the old paradigm of Cuba probably due to the large Cuban voting contingent in Florida. The Vietnamese voting bloc in the United States is much smaller and less influential. But thanks to the concentrated Cuban voting bloc and the Senators it helps elect, instead of Cuba becoming more allied with the United States, it is becoming more allied with China. This is how power politics works in the real world where being woke is irrelevant.

LESSONS FOR THE UNITED STATES   

Our Puritan heritage leaves no room for slack. We are a judgmental people. You are pure or you are toast. Think of the reaction Lindsay Graham recently received from a MAGA audience. He was not sufficiently loyal and he paid the price. That is what happens in the Revolutions British, French, and Russian to say nothing of the fate of people on the wrong side of their local history power shifts in their own countries. Then the price is not simple political death but biological death as well.

Part of what made and, hopefully, still makes, the United States exceptional is that retribution has not been the dominant ideology within our country. Except for the elections of Lincoln and Biden, we have had peaceful transfers of power. We have not demonized political opponents as minions of Satan worthy of toppling or death. Our motto has been more of the Brooklyn Dodgers “wait ‘til next year” then it has been to take no prisoners.

We paid a big price because we demanded countries live up to what we claimed our standards were. We have and still are struggling to deal with the reality that other countries don’t exist to fulfill American fantasies. The removal of the statue of Philip Schuyler is a reminder that we have a long way to go here in this country if We the People are going to be able to live together, a goal that will be severely challenged in the 2024 election and the 2026 celebration or commemoration. In the meantime, the countries in the real world could not care less about our woke conflicts.

Immigrant Achievements

October 16, 2022
by Peter Feinman

On October 10, 2022, the Lower Manhattan Historical Association (LMHA) resumed its annual in-person “Alexander Hamilton Immigrant Achievement Awards Ceremony” after the COVID hiatus. The ceremony was held at Trinity Commons, the new facility of Trinity Church in Manhattan located on a bridge walkway from Church. It provides a spectacular view the Trinity Church and is a wonderful facility to hold an event in lower Manhattan.

The awards this year were awarded to (in alphabetical order):

Michael Arad (Israel): the designer of the National September 11 Memorial at the World Trade Center site titled “Reflecting Absence.” His design was selected by the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation from among over 5000 submissions. He subsequently worked on fulfillment of his architectural vision.

Manuel Castro (Mexico): Commissioner in the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs. He is responsible for running the New York City agency dedicated to supporting over 3.2 million immigrants in New York City. Previously during COVID, he was the executive Director of New Immigrant Community Empowerment (NICE).

Wellington Chen (Formosa, Hong Kong): He is an architect by training and has a life-long interest in community resuscitation. He is the executive director of the Chinatown Partnership Local Development Corporation and serves on a range of organizations encompassing political, economic, and social areas.

I was asked to speak (for four minutes) on the importance of immigration. Below is my talk.

Today we salute Alexander Hamilton for helping to establish the country that would permit millions of other immigrants to fulfill the American dream.

I would like to begin with the story of one such family … mine. About one century ago, my father’s family arrived in the here from Russian-occupied Latvia.  Sound familiar?

My grandfather had first come here several years earlier to avoid the Russian draft.  Sound familiar?

He subsequently returned home, married, started a family, and left again. When the family arrived with my father they settled in Eagle Pass, Texas. Perhaps you heard of it recently. Later they relocated to New York. This means my family may be the first immigrant family to travel from Eagle Pass to New York.

Now here we are a century later. What has changed?

Or as the son of Italian-American immigrants said: “It’s déjà vu all over again.”

By now, I am sure you have the pictures of Russians fleeing Putin’s partial mobilization and war. As I looked at those scenes of longlines of cars, I was reminded of another scene of longlines of cars, only this one to fulfill the American Dream.

The scene is from the ending of the movie Field of Dreams. The cars are heading for a mythical baseball field in a field of corn. There Kevin Costner is playing catch with his deceased father. The father asks, “Is this heaven?’ The son replies, “It’s Iowa.” The father looks around and says, “I could have sworn this was heaven.” Kevin asks his father, “Is there a heaven?” Dad answers, “Oh yeah. It’s the place dreams come true.” The son looks around and sees his family, his home, and his farm and says, “May be this is heaven.” Grown men have be known to weep at this scene.

Closer to where we are today, there is another cinematic attestation of the cosmic fulfillment of the American Dream at a City on a Hill. I am referring, of course, to the scene from Working Girl. Melanie Griffith is taking the Staten Island ferry to New York. She sees before her not the Iowa farm but the city of Manhattan. She sees Lower Manhattan with the World Trade Towers. She sees the Statue of Liberty. She does so to the sound of Carly Simon singing

Let the river run
Let all the dreamers
Wake the nation
Come, the New Jerusalem.

New York is the island at the center of the world.

New York is the cosmic center.

New York is the City on a Hill.

New York is where dreams come true.

From the Jews who arrived in 1654 to the Irish at Castle Garden to the Great Migration, New York has been a beacon light for centuries even before the torch of Lady Liberty shone.

If the Lower Manhattan Historical Association granted awards to all the immigrants to this land who have fulfilled the American Dream, we would be here for years.

We must recognize that the dream has not been fulfilled for all who have come here or have been brought here or have been born here.

We must recognize that there still is much work to be done before that vision can be fulfilled.

 But we also should take time to recognize and salute those who have succeeded.

 It is with that vision in mind that the Lower Manhattan Historical Association is proud to grant the Alexander Hamilton Immigrant award to this year’s awardees.

Immigrants and July 4

July 1, 2017
by Peter Feinman

On July 2, the Lower Manhattan Historical Association (LMHA) held its second annual Alexander Hamilton Immigrant Awards Ceremony at Federal Hall, the National Park service site at Wall and Broad Streets in Lower Manhattan. Following the ceremony a parade was held (an edited video will be available at the LMHA website in the near future.
As a board member of the organization, I was asked to say a few words immediately prior to the handing out the awards. A slightly longer version of my remarks are presented below.

 

Today we honor four Americans at the Alexander Hamilton Immigrant Awards Ceremony. If I had said these words – say – 5, certainly 10 years ago, people would have been befuddled and looked at me in bewilderment.

Sure Alexander Hamilton was a founding father.

Sure he helped establish this country.

Sure he has a long list of achievements which I could recite until you are bored.

But immigrant!?

Recognizing Alexander Hamilton for having been an immigrant!

What’s going on here?

When Hamilton and others constituted this country, no one knew that it would last.

No one knew it would have a centennial.

No one knew it would have a bicentennial.

No one knew it would celebrate its 241st birthday.

But even as those first Americans sang Yankee Doodle Dandy, they called America an experiment.

And as we know, not all experiments succeed.

A journey had begun but would it endure?

With round two, the War of 1812, it looked like the experiment might end in failure. As a new generation of Americans was baptized by blood into the American covenant experience, things looked grim for the fledgling country. But we sang the Star Spangled Banner and endured. The journey continued.

On July 4, 1817, in Rome, New York, a hole in the ground was dug on what became the Erie Canal, a wonder of wonders of technological achievement and political vision. The journey continued and their were canal songs to sing as you can hear from the Hudson River Ramblers outside on the steps of Federal Hall.

By July 4, 1826, the 50th anniversary of our birthday, the experiment seemed a success. We had overcome the threats to our existence and were ready to fulfill a manifest destiny. On that very day two of the authors of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, died within hours of each other. For the people of times there could only be one explanation for such a coincidence: Divine Providence blessed this country. The journey continued.

On July 4, 1827, New York freed its slaves. The unfinished business that stained the very fabric of this country ceased in at least one more part of it. The journey continued.

At the beginning of July in 1863, the two halves that had been rendered asunder fought at Gettysburg. Months later, Abraham Lincoln in an address that would redefine the country, said these words which Americans still recall to this very day: “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”

Lincoln knew that not all the people in the audience were sons and daughters of the American Revolution.

Lincoln knew that many of the people in the audience and who had voted for him were immigrants.

Lincoln also knew that Americans native-born or naturalized who had been baptized by blood in the war to preserve the Union stood as one with those who had created the country 77 years earlier. Lincoln heard a new song, The Battle Hymn of the Republic, a song that combined the words of a Congregationalist and the music of a Methodist camp song, the leading religions of the colonial past and the Civil War present joined together. The journey continued.

When the “War to end all Wars” was fought, once again immigrants joined with the native-born on behalf of the country they loved. Irishman George M. Cohan revived Yankee Doodle Dandy on behalf of the effort to win the war Over There, Over There and America sang his songs as another generation and new immigrants were baptized by blood into the American covenant community. The journey continued.

World War II confronted America with the face of pure evil. This time it was a Russian-born Jewish immigrant, Irving Berlin, who composed the song America sang on its way to victory. With “God Bless America” another generation of Americans, native born and from Ellis Island rose to the occasion. The journey continued.

Have we run out of new songs to sing about the country we love? Have we stopped producing people who express their love of country through music? Sure there is Born in the USA by the Boss, a beloved song to the Gipper, who said it was morning in America and we are a city on a hill that the eyes of the world are upon. We don’t hear those sentiments coming from the White House anymore.

But what about “Hamilton.” Not a song to sing but a musical to experience. Not simply a Hamilton for academics to study, but Hamilton as a story for all Americans to tell, a soundtrack for Americans to buy, a musical for high school students to perform, a message for all Americans to hear.

Yes, he is still the same Hamilton who did all those things that helped build this country, but he has become something more than an academic figure, he has become a symbol, a metaphor, an example. He has done so not only though himself but through the cast that shares his story. When Hamilton lived there was no such thing as a white race in America. There were Scotch-Irish, Dutch, Palatines, French Huguenot, Puritan English, Cavalier English and woe to the person in New York who didn’t recognize the difference among the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, and Tuscarora. Now we have new names and more peoples but the issue remains the same – are we all part of We the People?

Hamilton answers in the affirmative.

Hamilton affirms that July 4 is the birthday of the country for all Americans.

Hamilton asserts that we are all part of the American narrative.

The journey continues

Who will tell the story ends the musical.

We will tell the story.

Right here.

Right now.

With the Alexander Hamilton Immigrant Achievement Awards

Thank you and congratulations to the awardees for continuing the journey.

Hamilton: The Broadway Musical Debuts

July 20, 2015
by Peter Feinman
Courtesy Disney Plus

Last  Monday I attended the Broadway opening of Hamilton, the musical. I was really looking forward to the event. The Alexander Hamilton Awareness Society was out in force.

The opening was particularly auspicious coming one day after the anniversary of Hamilton’s death in 1804. Continue reading “Hamilton: The Broadway Musical Debuts” →

Alexander Hamilton: America’s Savior Redux

April 2, 2015
by Peter Feinman

Can Alexander Hamilton once again ride to the rescue of America? This overblown claim deserves a second look. In previous posts, I examined the impact of the new musical Hamilton in an America with a desperate need for a We the People story that transcends the hyphenization now running rampart in our society.

For Americans, authenticity means being true to the Constitution, an evolving document which was amended in the beginning, throughout American history, and which can be amended again. Continue reading “Alexander Hamilton: America’s Savior Redux” →

The Hamilton Musical and America’s Future (Part II)

March 26, 2015
by Peter Feinman

Last week, I described what I think is a significant perilous trend facing history and the American culture through the process of hypehnization. I argued that identity in a society nominally based on We the People and e pluribus unum was being replaced by one where people self-identify as hyphenated Americans, with  corresponding history classes and museums to reflect these differences.

Diversity resonates in New York history. Take William Johnson, the the British royal agent in the 18th century, and an Irishman. His European world consisted of Dutch, French, English, and German (Palatines), all of whom were distinct from each other, as demonstrated for example, by the French and Indian War. Continue reading “The Hamilton Musical and America’s Future (Part II)” →