In the middle of Richard Brookhiser’s essay on Hamilton in the City Journal we find the following paragraph: "Hamilton played a minor role in the battles for New York in 1776, although he was here. But he played a major role in 9/11, even though he wasn’t. Almost certainly, neither Usama bin Ladin nor Saddam Hussein has ever heard of him. Yet the reason al-Qaida and its helpers and patrons struck the World Trade Center was that the towers symbolized modern America—Hamilton’s America. The United States is the epitome of everything the terrorists and their supporters hate, and New York is the epitome of the epitome. New Yorkers vote; they dream of a reign of virtue, and obey brutes. New Yorkers work; they count their oil revenues, and rail at usury. New Yorkers worship as they will; they recite a Koran they do not understand. New Yorkers of all races are free; they ship the survivors of raids in the Sudan to the kitchens and bedrooms of Arabia. In each of these areas—politics, economics, fundamental law—Hamilton was on the side of liberty, enterprise, and human potential, and against a world of stasis and arbitrary rule."