Queer History 594: Alexander Hamilton - The Founding Father Who Loved Hard and Wrote Gay as Fuck Letters

In the pantheon of American mythology, Alexander Hamilton has been sanitized, straightened, and scrubbed clean of anything that might challenge the heteronormative fairy tale we tell ourselves about our founding fathers. But here's the thing about historical whitewashing—it can't erase the actual fucking words these men wrote to each other. And Alexander Hamilton, that brilliant, passionate, self-destructive bastard who helped birth a nation, wrote letters to John Laurens that were so goddamn romantic, so emotionally intimate, so clearly beyond the bounds of "normal" male friendship that historians have been performing Olympic-level mental gymnastics for centuries to explain them away.

Born in 1755 on the Caribbean island of Nevis, Hamilton clawed his way from bastard orphan to the right hand of George Washington through sheer intellectual brilliance and an intensity that burned like a fucking supernova. But it was his relationship with fellow revolutionary John Laurens that revealed the depth of his capacity for love, passion, and the kind of emotional vulnerability that straight male mythology pretends doesn't exist. Their correspondence reads like a love affair conducted through the medium of revolutionary politics, and anyone who thinks these men were just "very good friends" has clearly never read a love letter in their goddamn life.

The Making of a Revolutionary Heart

Alexander Hamilton's early life was a masterclass in how trauma and abandonment can forge either a monster or a revolutionary—and sometimes both. His father abandoned the family when Alexander was ten. His mother died when he was thirteen, leaving him and his brother orphaned and destitute in a world that had no fucking patience for bastard children with no connections.

The psychological impact of this early abandonment cannot be overstated. Hamilton developed the kind of intense, desperate need for connection that would characterize all his relationships—romantic, political, and personal. He threw himself into every relationship with the fervor of someone who had learned early that love was scarce and could disappear without warning.

When he arrived in New York in 1773 to attend King's College (now Columbia), he was already displaying the intellectual brilliance and emotional intensity that would make him both indispensable and impossible. He wasn't just smart—he was fucking incandescent, the kind of person whose presence could light up a room or burn it down, depending on his mood.

It was in this environment of revolutionary ferment that he would meet the men who would become his closest friends, his political allies, and in the case of John Laurens, something far more profound and emotionally complex than the sanitized histories want to acknowledge.

Enter John Laurens: The Love That Dared Not Speak Its Name

John Laurens was everything Hamilton wasn't—wealthy, well-connected, Southern aristocracy with a pedigree that stretched back generations. Born in 1754 in South Carolina, he was the son of Henry Laurens, who would later become president of the Continental Congress. Where Hamilton was scrappy and desperate, Laurens was privileged and idealistic. Where Hamilton was calculating, Laurens was impulsive. They should have been enemies, or at best, polite acquaintances.

Instead, they became something that transcended friendship and entered territory that made their contemporaries—and historians ever since—deeply fucking uncomfortable.

Their first meeting, likely in 1777 when both men were serving as aides-de-camp to George Washington, was the beginning of a relationship that would define both their lives. The immediate intensity of their connection was evident to everyone around them. These weren't two men who gradually became friends—they fell into each other's lives with the force of men who had been waiting their entire lives to find someone who understood them completely.

The psychological dynamic between them was complex and profound. Hamilton, the bastard orphan who had clawed his way to relevance, found in Laurens someone who valued him not for his usefulness but for his mind, his passion, his authentic self. Laurens, the privileged idealist struggling with the contradictions of fighting for liberty while owning enslaved people, found in Hamilton someone who challenged him intellectually and supported him emotionally.

The Letters That Reveal Everything

If you want to understand the true nature of Hamilton and Laurens's relationship, you don't need to speculate or interpret—you just need to read their fucking letters. These men wrote to each other with an emotional intimacy, a romantic intensity, and a level of physical longing that goes so far beyond the bounds of platonic friendship that it's almost insulting to suggest otherwise.

Take this gem from Hamilton to Laurens in 1779: "Cold in my professions, warm in my friendships, I wish, my Dear Laurens, it might be in my power, by action rather than words, to convince you that I love you." Let's pause here for a moment. "I love you." Not "I value our friendship" or "I hold you in high regard." "I love you." Written by a man to another man in 1779, when such declarations were not made lightly or casually.

But it gets better—or gayer, depending on your perspective. In the same letter, Hamilton writes: "I would willingly risk my life for you. Could I wish for the happiness of both, it would be to see you secure and blest with all the human felicity which a good heart like yours deserve. But if heaven determined it otherwise, I would prefer Elysium with you to Paradise without you." This isn't just friendship—this is the language of romantic devotion, of someone who cannot imagine happiness without the other person.

The psychological intimacy revealed in these letters is staggering. These men shared their fears, their ambitions, their frustrations with the world around them. They wrote to each other about their loneliness, their need for connection, their struggles with the demands of revolutionary politics. They supported each other through depression, celebrated each other's successes, and mourned each other's setbacks with the kind of emotional investment that characterizes romantic relationships.

The Historical Gaslighting of Queer Love

The systematic denial of the romantic nature of Hamilton and Laurens's relationship is a perfect example of how historians have gaslit generations of LGBTQIA+ people out of their own history. For centuries, scholars have performed elaborate intellectual contortions to explain away the obvious romantic content of their correspondence.

"It was just the language of the time," they say, ignoring the fact that other men of the era didn't write to their male friends about preferring Elysium together to Paradise apart. "Men were more emotionally expressive then," they argue, as if emotional expression somehow negates romantic attraction. "They were just very close friends," they insist, as if the concepts of friendship and romantic love are mutually exclusive.

This historical gaslighting has had profound psychological effects on LGBTQIA+ people, particularly those studying American history. When you're told that your own experiences of love and attraction don't exist in the historical record, when you're denied the possibility of seeing yourself reflected in the founding of your own country, it sends a clear message: people like you are new, aberrant, unnatural.

The truth is that queer people have always existed, have always loved, and have always been part of the great movements of history. Hamilton and Laurens's relationship is just one example of what becomes visible when we stop accepting heteronormative assumptions about the past and start reading the actual fucking evidence.

The Revolutionary Politics of Forbidden Love

Hamilton and Laurens's relationship existed in the context of the American Revolution, and their political collaboration was inseparable from their personal connection. They didn't just love each other—they were trying to build a new world together, a republic based on ideals of liberty and equality that neither of them would live to see fully realized.

Their political partnership was intensely creative and productive. They collaborated on military strategy, financial policy, and the kind of nation-building that required both intellectual brilliance and emotional trust. Hamilton's later work as Secretary of the Treasury, creating the financial systems that would allow the new nation to survive, was informed by conversations he had with Laurens about economics, politics, and the nature of government.

The psychological dynamic of their relationship also influenced their political thinking. Both men were idealists who believed in the possibility of creating something better than what had come before. Their love for each other gave them a model for the kind of union they wanted to create politically—based on mutual respect, shared ideals, and emotional commitment rather than mere convenience or tradition.

Laurens's commitment to abolition, unusual for a Southern aristocrat, was strengthened by his relationship with Hamilton, who had seen slavery up close in the Caribbean and understood its fundamental incompatibility with republican ideals. Hamilton's later opposition to slavery was informed by these conversations with the man he loved, making their personal relationship inseparable from their political evolution.

The Trauma of War and Separation

The psychological toll of conducting a romantic relationship during wartime, when both men were constantly facing the possibility of death, cannot be overstated. Every separation carried the risk of being permanent. Every battle could end their ability to see each other again. The letters they wrote during periods of separation reveal the intense anxiety and longing that characterized their relationship.

Hamilton's depression during periods when he was separated from Laurens is evident in his correspondence. He wrote about feeling isolated, misunderstood, and emotionally bereft when they were apart. These weren't just the complaints of a friend missing another friend—these were the symptoms of someone suffering from separation anxiety in a romantic relationship.

The constant stress of hiding their relationship, of conducting their emotional intimacy within the constraints of military hierarchy and social expectations, added another layer of psychological pressure. They had to be careful about how they expressed their feelings, how they interacted in public, how they structured their correspondence to avoid suspicion.

This kind of psychological stress—loving someone deeply while being forced to hide that love—is familiar to every LGBTQIA+ person who has ever had to navigate a hostile social environment. The trauma of forced secrecy, of having to constantly monitor your behavior to avoid detection, of never being able to fully relax into your authentic self, leaves lasting psychological scars.

The Philosophy of Male Intimacy

Hamilton and Laurens's relationship challenges fundamental assumptions about masculinity, friendship, and the nature of male emotional connection that continue to plague our culture today. Their correspondence reveals two men who were capable of extraordinary emotional intimacy, romantic passion, and vulnerable self-disclosure—qualities that toxic masculinity tells us are incompatible with "real" manhood.

The philosophical implications of their relationship extend far beyond their personal connection. Their ability to combine emotional intimacy with intellectual collaboration, romantic love with political partnership, personal vulnerability with public leadership, provides a model for male relationships that directly contradicts the emotionally stunted version of masculinity that dominates American culture.

Their example suggests that the strongest men are those capable of the deepest emotional connections, that true leadership requires the ability to love and be loved, and that the most productive partnerships are those that integrate personal and professional, emotional and intellectual, private and public dimensions of human experience.

The Tragedy of Laurens's Death

John Laurens was killed in a minor skirmish in South Carolina in August 1782, just months before the end of the Revolutionary War. His death devastated Hamilton in ways that went far beyond the loss of a friend or political ally. Hamilton's reaction to the news reveals the depth of their connection and the intensity of his grief.

Lafayette, who knew both men well, wrote that Hamilton was "more deeply affected than it is possible to imagine" by Laurens's death. Hamilton himself rarely spoke of Laurens after his death, but when he did, it was with the kind of grief that suggests the loss of a life partner rather than a friend.

The psychological impact of this loss on Hamilton cannot be overstated. He had already experienced early abandonment and loss, and Laurens's death reinforced his sense that love was temporary and precious. The intensity with which he threw himself into his political work after Laurens's death suggests someone trying to fill a void that could never be filled.

The fact that Hamilton never formed another relationship with the same emotional intensity suggests that what he had with Laurens was irreplaceable. His marriage to Elizabeth Schuyler, while apparently affectionate and productive, lacked the passionate intimacy that characterized his relationship with Laurens.

The Social Construction of Heterosexual History

The systematic erasure of Hamilton and Laurens's romantic relationship from mainstream historical narratives is part of a broader pattern of heterosexual historians refusing to acknowledge queer relationships in the historical record. This isn't just academic oversight—it's active participation in the marginalization of LGBTQIA+ people.

When historians insist on interpreting obviously romantic correspondence as "just friendship," they're not just making an error in historical interpretation—they're participating in the ongoing cultural project of denying queer people their rightful place in American history. They're telling contemporary LGBTQIA+ people that their ancestors don't exist, that their love is historically unprecedented, that their relationships are somehow less valid than heterosexual ones.

This erasure has profound psychological effects on LGBTQIA+ people, particularly young people trying to understand their place in the world. When you're denied historical models, when you're told that people like you have never existed before, it creates a sense of isolation and abnormality that can be psychologically devastating.

The truth is that queer people have always been part of American history—they helped found the country, fought in its wars, created its institutions, and shaped its culture. Hamilton and Laurens are just one example of what becomes visible when we stop accepting heteronormative assumptions about the past.

The Continuing Relevance of Forbidden Love

More than two centuries after Hamilton and Laurens's relationship, their story continues to resonate with LGBTQIA+ people facing their own struggles with acceptance, authenticity, and the right to love freely. Their ability to maintain their connection despite social hostility, their willingness to express their love despite the risks, and their integration of personal relationship with public service provide models for contemporary queer people.

Their correspondence offers historical validation for the reality and legitimacy of same-sex love. Every time a young gay man reads Hamilton's letters to Laurens and recognizes his own capacity for romantic love reflected in those words, every time a queer person studying American history realizes that people like them helped found the country, every time someone refuses to accept the heterosexual whitewashing of the past, Hamilton and Laurens's legacy continues.

The psychological healing that their story provides to LGBTQIA+ people cannot be overstated. In a culture that still struggles to fully accept queer relationships, that still questions the validity of same-sex love, that still tries to marginalize LGBTQIA+ people, the example of two men who loved each other deeply while helping to create a nation provides both historical grounding and contemporary inspiration.

The Revolutionary Legacy of Authentic Love

Alexander Hamilton's legacy extends far beyond his contributions to American financial policy or his role in the Constitutional Convention. His relationship with John Laurens represents something equally important: proof that queer love has always been part of American history, that LGBTQIA+ people have always contributed to the great projects of human civilization, and that authentic relationships—regardless of gender—have the power to change the world.

Their love story reminds us that the personal is political, that authentic relationships can fuel revolutionary change, and that refusing to hide who you love is itself an act of resistance. They showed that it's possible to love deeply while serving something larger than yourself, to maintain emotional intimacy while engaging in political struggle, to be vulnerable and strong simultaneously.

The fact that mainstream historians have spent centuries trying to erase or explain away their relationship only makes their love more revolutionary. Every letter that survives, every expression of devotion that escaped the censors, every moment of authentic connection that was documented despite the risks—all of it stands as testimony to the power of love to transcend the boundaries that society tries to impose.

Hamilton wrote to Laurens that he would prefer Elysium with him to Paradise without him. That kind of love—total, transformative, willing to risk everything for the sake of authentic connection—is what makes their story not just historically significant but spiritually revolutionary. It reminds us that love is worth fighting for, that authenticity is worth the cost, and that the most important revolutions begin in the human heart.

Holy shit, what a legacy to leave behind: a love so profound that it survived war, death, and centuries of historical denial to inspire new generations of people fighting for the right to love freely. That's the real revolution Hamilton and Laurens started—not just political, but personal, proving that authentic love has the power to change not just individuals but entire civilizations.