Hamilton: Act 2: The Room Where it Happens Summary & Analysis

LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Hamilton, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.

Burr wonders how Hamilton is going to pass his new debt plan, and Hamilton explains that he will act like Burr (“talk less / smile more.”) Indeed, Hamilton has set up a cozy dinner with Jefferson and Madison , and Burr is enraged to have been excluded.

Hamilton seems to have taken Washington’s lesson to heart: instead of alienating Jefferson and Madison, Hamilton is able to compromise with them over dinner. Burr, who believes that he has been successfully playing the relationship game the whole time, is especially horrified that Hamilton—normally so abrasive—has figured out how to make peace with his enemies.

Though Jefferson and Hamilton tell slightly different stories, both agree on the basic details of what went on behind closed doors: Hamilton gets his bank, and Jefferson and Madison get the nation’s capital right in their backyard (Washington, D.C.). As trumpets play, Burr obsesses over the fact that “no one else was in the room where it happened.”

Once more, history changes depending on who is telling the story. So for Burr, not being in the “room where it happens” also means never knowing the truth behind history—like the audience, he must grasp at clues rather than getting the full story of what happened behind those doors.

Hamilton boasts to Burr that he has accomplished his goals. Hamilton presses Burr to think about what he stands for, and the company begins to chant “what do you want, Burr?” Burr answers, “I wanna be in the room where it happens.”

Hamilton’s drive comes from a desire to protect people—immigrants, orphans, those who feel “helpless”—who remind him of his own vulnerabilities. But Burr craves power for power’s sake; in this electrifying moment, it becomes clear that Burr wants to be in the room solely so that he can say he was there.

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