突破SAT/AP美国历史 | 你所不知道US history“网红”国父

2019-03-19 10:18

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（位于纽约曼哈顿的汉密尔顿故居，我去的时候拍的照片找不到了。。借用下the Grange官网的照片）

纵观SAT，AP美国历史历年考试，建国大爷华盛顿所涉及的题目非常之少，考过的也就是他的告别演说（Washington Farewell Address)，建国二爷第一任副总统加第二任总统亚当斯更加不受考试出题者待见，考生几乎可以忽略他的存在，唯一考过的还是他当年办的一件很挫的事，签署了违宪的被臭骂的关于制止外国人反美及煽动言论的法律（Alien and Sedition Act)。

那美国历史考试中最红的美国国父呢？他们是两个从来没有当过总统的，大家比较熟知的富兰克林（Benjamin Franklin)，和中国考生不太熟悉的汉密尔顿（Alexander Hamilton），他们可谓SAT/AP US history Super Star!!!

本期来讲一讲汉密尔顿，顺带分享下我历时一年断断续续看的近800页超厚传记Alexander Hamilton的部分读书笔记。

亚历山大·汉密尔顿是谁

他是美国建国第一任财政部长，当时年仅34岁，他建立了第一个国家银行，发行国债，让面临经济债务危机的新生国家得以生存发展，并奠定了美国作为资本主义商业强国的基础，而当时内阁中另外两个重要成员，杰弗逊和麦迪逊对美国的未来却有完全不同的愿景，他们希望把美国建成一个农业国家，经过种种辩论，谈判和妥协，汉密尔顿力排众议，从此决定了美国的命运。在位于纽约的汉密尔顿故居的介绍中，一句总结：“We all live in Hamilton's America.”从这就可以看出汉密尔顿为什么到现在还是美国的“大明星”了吧，百老汇上演了超级火爆的音乐剧Hamilton，据说票价被炒到3000美元一张依然场场爆满，而且有钱也不一定订得到票，可谓千金难求一票。

没有钱的姐就仅仅拜访一下故居，并看看传记解解馋吧。

话说在去汉密尔顿故居途中，路上和一黑哥们问路确认一下故居方位，黑哥们答曰：“Who the hell is Hamilton?”我们各种哈哈哈哈，黑哥们补充：“I live two blocks away, but I have never been there.” 玩笑开毕，黑哥们还是认真指了路。

图片来自网络

个人生活及情感八卦

成长

汉密尔顿是美国国父中唯一一位“新移民”，他在西印度群岛(West Indies)出生长大，是非婚生子，经历了各种不幸，10岁时，爸跑了，从此再也未见过，12岁时，妈妈病逝，之后投靠亲戚，寄人篱下。

P26

This abominable childhood produced such a strong, productive, self-reliant human being---that this fatherless adolescent could have ended up a founding father of a country he had not yet even seen.

生活的种种不幸还是完全掩盖不了他的才华，由于是私生子，不能上正式的教会学校，他儿时在当地一所小的非正规私立学校学习，主要还是靠如饥似渴的自学和读书，还能讲流利的法语，十几岁就到一个贸易公司做学徒工，由于实在是太才华横溢，写的文章太光芒四射，公司老板决定资助他去纽约学习，17岁的汉密尔顿于1773年进入了纽约的King’s College，也就是现在的哥伦比亚大学学习，书没读完就参加了独立战争，成为华盛顿的左膀右臂，极其受华盛顿赏识，行军的时候都是拖着一大箱书在走，打仗间隙拼命看书学习，战争结束，1782年考出了律师执照，成为纽约州的律师。汉密尔顿是自我完善式的自学者典型，把所有闲暇时间都用来完善自我。

来见识一下主要靠自学的孤儿汉密尔顿17岁时写的关于大风暴的文章片段：

P37

“It seemed as if a total dissolution of nature was taking place. The roaring of the sea and wind, fiery meteors flying about it in the air, the prodigious glare of almost perpetual lightning, the crash of the falling houses, and the ear-piercing shrieks of the distressed, were sufficient to strike astonishment into angels.”

独立战争期间，汉密尔顿有一个记账本，记录他各类读书笔记，他阅读涉猎广泛，有各种经典作品如政治，经济，金融，数学，也有希腊历史学家Plutarch记录的各类诡异性爱习俗故事。

P112

For anyone studying Hamilton’s pay book, it would come as no surprise that he would someday emerge as a first-rate constitutional scholar, an unsurpassed treasury secretary, and the protagonist of the first great sex scandal in American political history.

作为北美大陆来自非英国的新移民，在独立战争期间汉密尔顿也经常被人诟病，说他一个外国人在这里瞎起什么劲，是不是有什么阴谋？！汉密尔顿早已把纽约当成了自己的家，完全没有回老家的想法。

情感生活

汉密尔顿的情感生活也是他戏剧化人生的重要部分，他一生挚爱应该是这位叫John Laurens的帅哥。

维基百科里介绍John Laurens就写到Laurens爸爸都发现他从小就对女的一点兴趣都没有，虽然长大结婚了也是迫不得已。

P95 John Laurens

Hamilton and Laurens took an instant liking to each other and became inseparable. Hamilton later lauded his friend’s “zeal, intelligence,enterprise.”

As the war progressed, Hamilton wrote to Laurens with such unbridled affection that one Hamilton biographer, James T. Flexner, has detected homoerotic overtones in their relationship.

书中还写到汉密尔顿和Laurens的很多通信都被家人刻意毁掉了，具体情况不得而知，很多历史学家都怀疑他是gay，称他“a lady's man and a man's man”，男女通杀。汉密尔顿一直都很受女的欢迎，身边美女如云。

P123

During Laurens's southern sojourn, Hamilton wrote to him some of the most personally revealing letters of his life. He knew the south was endangered by the British and that atrocities were being committed on both sides. Perhaps he wondered whether he would ever see his friend again. In one April 1779 letter, Hamilton expressed such open affection for Laurens that an early editor, presumably Hamilton's son, crossed out some of the words and scrawled across the top, “I must not publish the whole of this.”

汉密尔顿写给Laurens的信：

Cold in my professions, warm in friendships, I wish, my dear Laurens, it might be in my power by action rather than words to convince you that I love you. I shall only tell you that till you bade us adieu, I hardly knew the value you had taught my heart to set upon you. Indeed, my friend, it was not well done. You know the opinion I entertain of mankind and how much it is my desire to preserve myself free from particular attachments and to keep my happiness independent of the caprice of others. You should not have taken advantage of my sensibility to steal into my affections without my consent.

汉密尔顿一直都对Laurens热情似火，然而Laurens相比是冷淡很多的，写给汉密尔顿的信也没有那么多。

独立战争快要结束的时候，Laurens却不幸战死沙场了，这对汉密尔顿是极大的打击。他再也没有交过像Laurens这样关系的朋友。

P173 Laurens' death

But he was more of a solitary crusader without Laurens, lacking an intimate lifelong ally such as Madison and Jefferson found in each other.

After the death of John Laurens, Hamilton shut off some compartment of his emotions and never reopened it.

汉密尔顿的结婚对象是当时的纽约首富Philip Schuyler的二女儿Elizabeth Schuyler（下图）。

出身卑微的汉密尔顿“嫁”入豪门之后就顺利拿到了纽约户口。汉密尔顿和他老婆的姐姐Angelica的关系也非常不一般。如果不是Angelica已婚，汉密尔顿应该是会向她求婚，而不是妹妹Eliza。（我对活到98岁高龄生过8个小孩的汉密尔顿老婆Eliza表示同情，老公或是Closet gay，还更爱她的姐姐。。。）

P133 Angelica

Starting with that first winter in Morristown, Hamilton was drawn almost magnetically to Eliza’s married older sister, Angelica, and spent the rest of his life beguiled by both Eliza and Angelica, calling them “my dear brunettes”.

The attraction between Hamilton and Angelica was so potent and obvious that many people assumed they were lovers. At the very least, theirs was a friendship of unusual ardor, and it seems plausible that Hamilton would have proposed to Angelica, not Eliza, if the old sister had been eligible. Angelica was more Hamilton’s counterpart than Eliza.

Angelica was one of the few American women of her generation as comfortable in a European drawing room as in a Hudson River parlor, and there was a gossipy irreverence about her that seemed very European. Unlike Eliza, she learned to speak perfect French. Where Eliza bowed reluctantly to the social demands of Hamilton’s career, Angelica applauded his ambitions and was always famished for news of his latest political exploits.

汉密尔顿能娶到首富的女儿，主要因为把首富搞定了，他在一次社交活动中认识了首富，首富非常喜欢汉密尔顿，太才华横溢没办法，以至于最后穷小子汉密尔顿追首富女儿，首富觉得是他们家的幸运。。。。。。汉密尔顿求婚，把首富一家都乐坏了。。。可谓傍大款的最高水准。

P136

Hamilton visited the Schuylers each evening, and the Schylers felt flattered that the ex-clerk from the West Indies had chosen them.

汉密尔顿还是美国建国以来第一个政坛性丑闻的主角，他和一个有夫之妇有染并被勒索，他在报纸上公开了他的污点并详细交待了这段事件。天才汉密尔顿的性格缺陷还是让他在政治生涯中吃了不少亏。除了华盛顿之外的国父们都对他混乱的私生活直摇头，各种诟病。

亚当斯对他的评论：

P522 Adams

“His fornications, adulteries and his incests (an apparent insinuation that he had slept with Angelica Church) were propagated far and wide.”

一生都很戏剧化的汉密尔顿连死法都很别具一格，他死于和当时副总统Aaron Burr的决斗(Duel)，在49岁的盛年生命戛然而止，用自己的生命捍卫荣誉。

AP/SAT2考点

汉密尔顿的核心主张是美国需要一个强有力的联邦政府(a strong central government)，独立战争还没结束的时候，他就开始大力呼吁召开制宪会议，他是参与制宪会议的少有的草根出身的代表。

他成为联邦党人(the Federalist)的核心领导人物，和杰弗逊领导的民主共和党(the Democratic-Republican)对美国的未来有完全不同的愿景和期待。

Hamilton

Jefferson

汉密尔顿核心的经济政策是：

1. 以面值偿还独立战争时期美国欠下的债务(Debt)；

2. 要求国会通过法令鼓励制造业，包括保护性进口关税(Tariffs)，鼓励新发明；

3. 建立国家银行(National Bank)，银行为私有，联邦政府持有部分股份。

在美国国父中从头至尾一直支持汉密尔顿的只有华盛顿，汉密尔顿一直面临政敌的反对和质疑，最终还是以出色的才华领导美国在建国后短短的几年内，恢复了国际信用，建立了经济制度，为美国搭起了经济发展的舞台，打下了100年后世界一流经济强国的制度基础。

P110

Unlike Jefferson, Hamilton never saw the creation of America as a magical leap across a chasm to an entirely new landscape, and he always thought the New World had much to learn from the Old.

P345 Economy

In a nation of self-made people, Hamilton became an emblematic figure because he believed that government ought to promote self-fulfillment, self-improvement, and self-reliance.

Hamilton did not create America’s market economy so much as foster the cultural and legal setting in which it flourished. A capitalist society requires certain preconditions. Among other things, it must establish a rule of law through enforceable contracts; respect private property; create a trustworthy bureaucracy to arbitrate legal disputes; and offer patents and other protections to promote invention. The abysmal failure of the Article of Confederation to provide such an atmosphere was one of Hamilton’s principal motives for promoting the Constitution. “It is known,” he wrote, “that the relaxed conduct of the state governments in regard to property and credit was one of the most serious diseases under which the body politic labored prior to the adoption of our present constitution and was a material cause of that state of pubic opinion which led to its adoption.” He converted the new Constitution into a flexible instrument for creating the legal framework necessary for economic growth. He did this by activating three still amorphous clauses--the necessary-and-proper clause, the general-welfare clause, and the commerce clause--making them the basis for government activism in economics.

常考最高法院法案Marbury v. Madison (1803)，McCulloch v. Maryland (1819)，大法官John Marshall的裁决都来自汉密尔顿思想的影响。作为汉密尔顿的宿敌杰弗逊的表亲（cousin），John Marshall在政治上可谓汉密尔顿灵魂附体，在最高法院一直大力贯彻联邦党人的核心思想。

P648 John Marshall

During thirty-four years on the court, John Marshall, more than anyone else, perpetuated Hamilton’s vision of both vibrant markets and affirmative government.

In writing the decision in Marbury v. Madison (1803), Marshall established the principle of judicial review--the court’s authority to declare acts of Congress unconstitutional--drawing liberally on Hamilton’s Federalist number 78. His decision in the landmark case of McCulloch v. Maryland (1819) owed a great deal to the doctrine of implied powers spelled out by Hamilton in his 1791 opinion on the legality of a central bank.

总结

他才华横溢，聪敏过人，雄辩又擅长写作，儿时的成长经历也同时造就了他敏感又桀骜不驯的个性，他一直都是直抒胸臆，磊落坦荡，但作为政治家的汉密尔顿完全不是老谋深算的杰弗逊的对手。

这本汉密尔顿传记读来可谓惊心动魄，荡气回肠，历史课本中仅有几个干巴巴的重点政绩介绍，而在这本书中，你可以看到一个有血有肉，复杂多维的汉密尔顿。回顾他短短一生，他生命的厚度，广度和影响力都让现在的我们感到无比震撼，从中受到诸多启发和思考。

Reference:

Alexander Hamilton, by Ron Chernow

部分图片来自https://foursquare.com/v/hamilton-grange-national-memorial/4df67e70e4cd50071441065f

Wikipedia

作者介绍：席鹤

主授课程：SAT2美国历史 AP美国历史/文学课程

教育背景：荷兰格罗宁根商学院

授课时长：九年