I sincerely doubt that, within my lifetime, there will ever be a definitive answer to the question “did Alexander Hamilton and John Laurens have romantic feelings for one another?” Their letters certainly do seem to suggest so to some people. Even if one takes into account that men were a lot more outwardly affectionate with one another in the 18th century, the way these two spoke to each other was unusually romantically charged even for the time.
This may or may not end up a controversial post. I hope it doesn’t but inevitably when one brings up the possibility that anyone involved in the founding of this country was anything other than ultra hetero, it makes certain people ultra upsetero. But guess what - I don’t give a fuck. I’m almost 30 and frankly I’m done caring what straight people think when I speculate.
Also I’m not alone in this speculation - the theory that John Laurens and Alexander Hamilton May have had feelings for each other that were way more than friendly is not a new theory! I know some people want to pretend that this is something teenage “Hamilton” fans on tumblr made up (and even if it were, fuck off? Let teenagers - literal children - have fun while they try to find representation for themselves?) but this is actually a legitimate scholarly debate that’s been going on for years. There is a long-running
gay veteran's club in San Francisco named after Hamilton, the New York City LGBT sites project lists
Hamilton Grange in its LGBT historical sites list, so this is clearly a legacy that means a lot to a lot of people, regardless of whatever the general consensus ends up being. Even mainstream Hamilton biographer Ron Chernow had this to say about it, even if he was slightly “no homo” about it:
As the war progressed, Hamilton wrote to Laurens with such unbridled affection that one Hamilton biography, James T. Flexner, has detected homoerotic overtones in their relationship. Because the style of eighteenth-century letters could be quite florid, even between men, one must tread gingerly in approaching this matter, especially since Laurens’s letters to Hamilton were warm but proper. It is worth noting here, however, how frequently people used the word feminine to describe Hamilton – the more surprising given his military bearing and virile exploits... Hamilton had certainly been exposed to homosexuality as a boy, since many "sodomites” were transported to the Caribbean along with thieves, pickpockets, and others deemed undesirable. In all thirteen colonies, sodomy had been a capital offense, so if Hamilton and Laurens did become lovers – and it is impossible to day this with any certainty—they would have taken extraordinary precautions... At the very least, we can say that Hamilton developed something like an adolescent crush on his friend.
[... ]
For Hamilton, the news [of Laurens’s death] was crushing. ‘Poor Laurens, he has fallen a sacrifice to his ardor in a trifling skirmish in South Carolina,’ he wrote sadly to Lafayette, the other member of their war triumvirate. ‘You know how truly I loved him and will judge how much I regret him.’ The death deprived Hamilton of the political peer, the steadfast colleague, that he was to need in his tempestuous battles to consolidate the union. He would enjoy a brief collaboration with James Madison and never lacked the stalwart if often aloof patronage of George Washington. But he was more of a solitary crusader without Laurens, lacking an intimate lifelong ally such as Madison and Jefferson found in each other. On a personal level, the loss was even more harrowing. Despite a large circle of admirers, Hamilton did not form deep friendships easily and never again revealed his interior life to another man as he had to Laurens. He became ever more voluble in his public life but somehow less introspective and revelatory in private. Henceforth, his confessional remarks were reserved for Eliza or Angelica Church. After the death of John Laurens, Hamilton shut off some compartment of his emotions and never reopened it.
Historian Thomas Foster writes this about it:
Virtually all other biographers ignore the love between Laurens and Hamilton. One author, for example, mentions every aspect of Washington’s sexual scandals, however untenable, and thereby highlights his virility, but makes no mention of the controversy around how to read the Laurens correspondence or the fact that some historians for decades have been using it as evidence of same-sex love. Indeed, the book, which highlights “intimacy” in the Founders’ lives, limits itself to that shared between men and women, despite the fact that the author’s conceptualization of intimacy is not solely sexual and include bonds between parent and daughter and platonic, if flirtatious, male-female friendships. The decision to leave aside intimate bonds between fathers and sons and also between men leads perhaps to Laurens’s being cast as a participant in a decidedly heterosexual relationship.
As to what I believe... well, I’m sorry, but I don’t have a definitive answer myself. I do think John Laurens probably was gay. He definitely was depressed and seemed to seek death, and before Hamilton he flirted with
Francis Kinloch. Yes, Laurens married a woman, Martha, but it seems to have been out of duty rather than romance. Tumblr user john-laurens makes a
far more detailed and convincing argument for John Laurens’ sexual orientation. As for Hamilton, of course as a gay I want to believe that one of my favourite historical figures was bisexual. I don’t want to say that he was or was not for sure, but, as “The X-Files” would say, I Want to Believe
Either way it’s fun to speculate. And hoo boy once you read
some of these letters I wouldn’t be surprised if you were speculating too. Besides, just speculating doesn’t hurt anybody. I mean both guys involved are long dead, I doubt they really care what some lesbian with a blog says. It’s not like I would EVER say anything about this at the Grange while giving a tour. (Not unless someone asked me directly, I am a professional.)
Without further ado, I present to you words
actually written by John Laurens and Alexander Hamilton (mostly Hamilton as he wrote more) that, to be honest, would not look out of place in a love letter.
