Grace Conlon, Voice correspondent| State Journal-Register
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past six to eight months, you’ve probably been hearing a lot about Alexander Hamilton.
And for those of you who have been living under a rock, Alexander Hamilton is the guy on the ten-dollar bill. While most of the people whose faces grace our currency were presidents, Alexander Hamilton never was president — though I have been guilty for thinking he had been commander in chief at one point.
However, I’ve learned a lot about Alexander Hamilton this year, all thanks to “Hamilton,” the musical. I can tell you about his difficult childhood, his migration to the colonies, his fight for independence and his premature death at 49 years old. However, my obsession with the musical is not why I wrote this column.
There’s been some discussion recently about taking Hamilton off the ten-dollar bill. Before the musical, I have to be honest and tell you that I didn’t really care. I thought it would just be a little change. But then the musical came along and I realized just how little sense this made.
First of all, Hamilton is one of the most influential founding fathers who was never president. He fought in the Revolutionary War and served for a time as George Washington’s aide de camp. He was even part of the Battle at Yorktown, which was essentially the battle that one the colonies their independence.
Second of all, without Hamilton, our Constitution probably wouldn’t exist. After the war, he was invited to be part of the Constitutional Convention, and during the contentious period of debate over ratification, he took part in writing a series of essays to persuade people to adopt the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
There are a few other smaller things he did: for example, he founded the New York Post and started the Coast Guard. But perhaps the most compelling argument for keeping Hamilton on the ten-dollar bill is that without him, our modern financial system wouldn’t exist.
After the war, Hamilton once again served under Washington as the first Secretary of Treasury. He argued for and eventually formed the first national bank to start the country’s first line of credit. He also formed the U.S. Mint, which prints our money.
Why, then, would we possibly want to remove him from our money? Without him, we wouldn’t even have a ten-dollar bill! For all these reasons, he should probably be on a higher denomination (Ulysses S. Grant, anyone?), but at the very least there’s no way we could or even should remove him from the place of honor he holds now.
I’ll put it another way: you wouldn’t take Wendy’s face off the fast food sign, would you? So let’s keep Hamilton on the 10.
— Grace Conlon is a freshman at Sacred Heart-Griffin High School.
