This is an archive of past discussions about John Laurens. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
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As recently revised, this article makes it much clearer that Laurens was already a married man with a child, before he joined the Continental Army and met Hamilton. In fact, Lafayette was also a married man; he had a young and beautiful wife (Adrienne) and a daughter back in France. Once you know that Laurens and Lafayette both had wives and kids, all the speculation about their relationships with men start to look less historically sound, and more like wishful thinking by people who want it to be true.
In summary: don't rely on the bachelor party scene in "The Story of Tonight (Reprise)" as a historical text. Contrary to the musical, Hamilton's three friends (including Hercules Mulligan) were all married men, before Hamilton ever met them. Lin-Manuel Miranda may have ignored the wives because they were far away and/or dramatically inconvenient, but during the war, those guys each had a wife and at least one kid back home. Hamilton was the last of that group to get married, by several years. (Not including Burr, who had to wait for it several years longer.) Lwarrenwiki (talk)23:33, 3 January 2018 (UTC)
Sexuality and relationship with Alexander Hamilton
In my opinion, the speculation of the relationship between Laurens and Hamilton are substantiated, and quite frankly, I think to deny a romantic, or even possibly sexual relationship between the two is to admit dismissal of key evidence. John Laurens was almost without question, homosexual. Pity obliged him to marry, as he said to his father, and he was known to have a romantic relationship with fellow student Francis Kinloch while at boarding school in Geneva.
The correspondence between Hamilton and Laurens is undeniably extremely affectionate. It strays beyond the realms of male friendship at the time, including professions of deep love and sexual innuendos. Hamilton's letters show more unbridled affection when compared to Laurens', however, to say this means the latter felt less affection to Hamilton would be incorrect. The context of his upbringing, eldest son of an influential Virginian plantation owner and congressman, student of an elite European boarding school, contrasts with Hamilton's own, more liberated upbringing. It is likely he felt constrained by his social standing when writing to the man.
When comparing Laurens' letters with his correspondences to others, his love for Hamilton is evident. There are also many more written to Hamilton than to his other friends, despite Hamilton's complaints he didn't write enough. His affection is subtler, it requires some study and caution, but it is there.
As well as this, how could the sanitation of their letters be explained otherwise? Portions of their letters, and entire letters themselves were destroyed, many certainly contained explicit sexual or romantic details. For example, in one letter, a sentence directly after Hamilton's joking allusion to his penis it cut out.
By use of Occam's razor, there is no other justifiable reason to the destruction of their correspondence. By John Hamilton's destroying of them, he provides us with some of the hardest evidence towards their relationship.
At the time of their relationship, it was described as unusually romantic by many who knew them and that Hamilton spent more time with Laurens than he did with his own. newly wedded wife. Hamilton's deepest affections were always reserved for Laurens and after the man's death, Biographer Ron Chernow states that Hamilton locked away some compartment of his emotions he never again opened. — Preceding unsigned comment added by MaryFrancesWoods (talk • contribs) 19:12, 25 January 2018 (UTC)
The issue has already been addressed with reliable sources duly referenced and with differing opinions all duly noted per WP:NEUTRAL. Should you have an academic paper you would like to submit on this subject, please feel free to do so in the due venues, Wikipedia is not the place for WP:OR Also please remember to sign your comments when posting on the talk page. Thanks. Isananni (talk) 19:46, 25 January 2018 (UTC)
Honestly, by intentionally omitting quotes from both Laurens and his father that suggests that he was exclusively interested in men, it is indeed dismissing key evidence. Simply because there are not very many academic papers on the subject doesn't mean that evidence can or should be dismissed just to illustrate a skewed point of view. Geekyhistorian (talk) 00:29, 1 February 2018 (UTC)
Semi-protected edit request on 8 February 2018
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The issue has already been discussed ad nauseam. Hamilton himself described his relationship with Laurens as “friendship”, deal with it. Isananni (talk) 05:59, 21 February 2018 (UTC)
Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 05:09, 13 February 2018 (UTC)