This is an I-Heart podcast.

This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories, the show where America is the star

and the American people coming to you

from the city where the west begins, Fort Worth, Texas. We're about to hear the untold story

of Alexander Hamilton's likely Jewish birth and upbringing in its revolutionary consequences

for understanding him and the nation this founding father

fought to create. Here to tell the story is Andrew Porwansher. Andrew is a professor of legal

history at Arizona State University. This story is adapted from his book, The Jewish World,

of Alexander Hamilton. Let's take a listen.

I fear prepossessions are strongly against us.

Hamilton wrote to his wife Eliza,

but we must try to overcome them.

It was the first day of a high-profile trial where he was serving as legal counsel for a merchant accused a fraud.

Hamilton seemed to brace for the worst, adding, if I should lose my cause, I must console myself with finding my friends.

With the utmost eagerness, I will fly to them.

It had been five years since Hamilton stepped down as Treasury Secretary to take up legal practice

in Manhattan.

He had earned a reputation as the premier litigator of the New York Bar by wedding his

encyclopedic knowledge of law with his gift for

courtroom oratory. Although Hamilton was remarkably self-assured in his endeavors, and the facts in the

foregoing case were squarely on his side, he felt uncharacteristically discomfited as the trial commenced.

There was good reason to be anxious.

...