Letters, the primary form of communication for Hamilton and his cohorts, symbolize the power words have to shape reality—and to transform the way history is remembered. Writer-composer Lin-Manuel Miranda chose to frame many of the most pivotal moments in his musical around letters. Hamilton first courts his wife Eliza via letter-writing (“you built me palaces out of paragraphs,” she later reflects); he and Aaron Burr speak to their newborn children in “Dear Theodosia,” a song written in letter format. And because letters capture private thoughts and relationships, preserving them for future archives and historians, the characters are tremendously concerned with how their letters are written and interpreted. When Hamilton’s sister-in-law Angelica notices a surprising comma in one of Hamilton’s letters, she can’t help but obsess: “it changed the meaning, did you intend it / one stroke and you’ve consumed my waking days.” And when Hamilton’s affair comes to light, a heartbroken Eliza takes her revenge by burning his letters (“Burn”): “I’m erasing myself from the narrative,” she vows, “I’m burning the memories, burning the letters that might have redeemed you.” In “Burn,” Eliza makes clear that letters can spark love or tarnish it, build reputations or destroy them—and when those letters are kept and archived, they impact the historical “narrative” forever.
Letters Quotes in Hamilton
BURR: My father wasn’t around
HAMILTON: I swear that
BURR, HAMILTON: I’ll be around for you.
HAMILTON: I’ll do whatever it takes.
BURR: I’ll make a million mistakes.
BURR, HAMILTON: I’ll make the world safe and sound for you…
Will come of age with our young nation
We’ll bleed and fight for you, we’ll make it right for you.
If we lay a strong enough foundation
We’ll pass it on to you, we’ll give the world to you, and you’ll blow us all away….
Someday, someday
HAMILTON: I wrote my way out of hell.
I wrote my way to revolution.
I was louder than the crack in the bell.
I wrote Eliza love letters until she fell.
I wrote about the Constitution and defended it well.
And in the face of ignorance and resistance,
I wrote financial systems into existence.
And when my prayers to God were met with indifference,
I picked up a pen, I wrote my own deliverance.
ELIZA: You and your words, obsessed with your legacy
Your sentences border on senseless
And you are paranoid in every paragraph
How they perceive you?
You, you, you…
I’m erasing myself from the narrative.
Let future historians wonder
How Eliza reacted when you broke her heart.
You have torn it all apart […]
I’m burning the memories,
Burning the letters that might have redeemed you.
Letters Symbol Timeline in Hamilton
